A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE by the current, sometimes to the depth of a hundred feet or more, since the gravels of which the implements formed constituent parts had been deposited. To distinguish this more ancient Stone age from that which was both better known and more recent, the term ' Palaeolithic ' was applied to it by Sir John Lubbock (now Lord Avebury), while the more recent Stone age was designated the ' Neolithic.' Others preferred the terms ' River-drift period ' and ' Surface Stone period.' The relics characteristic of a transition from one period to the other, though occasionally asserted to have been found, have not as yet had their existence satisfactorily established ; and in England, at all events, there seems to be a great gulf fixed between the two periods. This is not the place in which to enter into the geological features of the question ; but it may be mentioned that the beds containing Palaeolithic implements seem in some cases to be of lacustrine rather than of fluviatile origin, and that from time to time implements are found upon the surface, probably in consequence of the containing beds having been denuded by the action of rain. The principal Palaeolithic forms are ' flakes,' often of large size, and oval, ovate, and pointed implements, usually from about three to six or seven inches in length. The flakes, which generally show three or four facets on the more convex face, have been detached from blocks of flint by means of a single blow, and seem to have served as knives or as scraping tools. The larger implements have been trimmed into shape by a succes- sion of blows administered at their margins, each blow detaching a flake or splinter. They seem to have been employed for all purposes, and to have been held in the hand, and not mounted on any handle or shaft, though some of them look as if they might have been readily converted into spear-heads. For their general character and theories as to their age 1 other works must be consulted. The discoveries of Palaeolithic implements within the county of Hertford have been numerous, and some of them have been made under peculiarly interesting circumstances. It will be well to consider them in somewhat geographical order, taking the districts comprised within the watersheds of the rivers Colne and Lea as the two main divisions. The first recorded discovery of the kind within the county was made by myself in the year 1 86 1, 2 when I found a Palaeolithic implement in a ploughed field near Bedmond, in the parish of Abbot's Langley. It is of the pointed triangular form, but it has lost its point, and although found lying on the surface, it was probably derived from a bed of red brick-earth in the immediate neighbourhood. The spot where it lay is about half a mile to the west of Bedmond and about 1 60 feet above the level of the Gade at its nearest point. It is, however, near the bottom 1 Evans, /Indent Stone Implements ; Lubbock, Prehistoric Times ; Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, etc., etc., etc. 2 Arcb&ologia, xxxix. p. 73 ; Evans, Ancient Stone Implements, 2nd ed. p. 596 ; Tram. Herts Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. viii. p. 182. 224
