108 THE PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD
work above cited (Man the Primaeval Savage). In many cases
he was actually able to replace on the tongue-shaped implements,
the chips and flakes produced during their manufacture.
The discovery of a very large number of implements has
been recorded from Farnham but I have not the reference by me
at the time of writing.
The only tongue-shaped implement from the valley of the
Wandle is that found by myself at Mitcham and recorded in
Science Gossip19.
Church has recorded implements in his "Notes on Drift
Gravels at West Wickham"20 and my friend Kennard has a
large collection from the same locality. They come from a
patch of gravel occurring at a slightly higher level than the
majority of the valley-drifts and many of them have decided
Eolithic affinities.
The deposits of gravel, sand and loam, which constitute the
valley drift of the Thames basin, have yielded the remains of one
of the most remarkable fauna ever gathered together in so small
an area. Bones of animals which are now only met with in
different and widely-separated parts of the world are mingled
with those of extinct species of elephant and rhinoceros, and with
the flint implements of the men who were their contemporaries.
The extinct vertebrates comprise the trogontherium, two
species of fellow-deer, three of rhinoceros, two of elephants, and
a vole. One of the elephants is the well-known species whose
hairy carcases have been found in the frozen tundras on the
further side of the Urals, and of which the cave-men of the
Dordogne have left such faithfully-executed engravings.
Those of the existing species which did not survive the
Palaeolithic period in this country include such diversely dis-
tributed animals as the hippopotamus, spotted hyaena and lion,
which are now practically confined to the continent of Africa,
and the musk-ox, whose habitat at the present day is restricted
to the Arctic regions of North America.
Another group, which includes two voles—Microtus ratticeps
and M. gregalis—the saiga and the souslik, is to-day characteristic
of the Steppes. Two species of lemming are also comprised in
19 J. P. Johnson "Palaeolithic Man in Valley of the Wandle," Science Gossip, N. S.
vii., pp. 69-71, 177, 221.
20 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. lvi. (1900.)