EVIDENCES OF PREHISTORIC MAN IN WEST KENT. 329
as a reliable test of age, as, owing to purely local circumstances, it
is quite possible that the discolouration may belong to a much
later period.
We will now proceed to an examination of the area which for
some eighteen months I have carefully examined and noted,
namely, that of Well Hill, Shoreham, as it illustrates to a very
accentuated degree the great antiquity of the high level gravels
belonging to the S. to N. rivers of the Weald. The elevation
known as Well Hill rises to a height of 610 feet O.D. and forms
the culminating point of the immediate vicinity. (See Section,
Fig. 1.) The most striking feature of the elevation is that on
the summit (610 feet O.D.) there is a thick and well-marked
FIG. I.—SUCTION OF WELL HILL, SHOWING THE RELATIVE POSITION OF
EOLITHIC AND PALAEOLITHIC GRAVELS.
deposit of flint gravel packed in a matrix of loose quartz sand.
That the gravel is one of great antiquity, older, perhaps, than
the drift on the Downs, is suggested by its much wasted con-
dition, making it useless as road metal, and the absence of debris
from the Lower Greensand ; this latter point, first noticed by the
late Sir Joseph Prestwich, is of some importance, as showing that
at the time of the deposition of the Well Hill gravel the rivers
had not cut their channels through the chalk. The simple com-
position of the gravel well confirms the antiquity assigned to it ;
the flints are only slightly iron-stained, and instead of the clay
matrix of the Downs, there exists the sharp, crisp sand, showing
clear evidence of the break-up of the Tertiaries once existing to