IV.—Palæolithic Implements from the Valley of the Axe

Extract

At Broom, in the parish of Hawkchurch, near Axminster, close to the River Axe, in the angle formed by the junction of a tributary brook with it, is a low hill, the summit of which is about 50 feet above the level of the rails of the London and South-Western Railway, which runs at its base. This hill consists of a mass of chert gravel intermingled with ferruginous clay of a yellow colour, and interstratified with seams of sandy clay, without shells or other animal-remains, as far as is at present known. There are a few much-rolled pebbles of quartz; of a hard dark-grey siliceous rock; and of chalk flints, mingled with the chert fragments, many of which are angular or subangular. It has been cut into for ballast for the railway, and about half has been removed in the last fifteen years, exposing a section of from 40 to 50 feet in depth. The bottom of the pit is on a level with the rails, which are a few feet above the river, and about 150 feet above the level of the sea, about six miles distant. The chert gravel was probably derived from the Greensand which caps the hills inclosing the valley.