1864.1 391 [Lesley. 



Fig. 3 lies still further west, alons; the face of the back wall of 

 the quarry, and shows the streams or streaks of broken flints appear- 

 ing and disappearina: in the body of the mass of yellowish loam ; a, 

 is the upper covering of humus. The section is on the same scale 

 with that of Fi<:s. 1 and 2. But the scale of Fig. 4 is enlarged to 

 show the engagement of white loam (d), in waved lenses, parallel to 

 each other, in the body of the homogeneous mass of darker, slightly 

 reddish loam (r) ; and vice irrsd the appearance of waved lines and 

 len.ses of c in the lower part of ^ ; a is an overlying stratum of 

 coarse loam, charged with flint, and resting on a layer of broken 

 flints; b is a homogeneous mass of yellow loam. 



It is apparent from these sections that the formation is in its pris- 

 tine condition. The floor of chalk appears suddenly and at an un- 

 expected height, within two or three paces of Fig. 4, forming as it 

 were, a little clilf in the deposit, but no special collection of broken 

 flints lies in immediate contact with it, and but a very few fragments 

 of chalk, and those of a very small size. There is no appearance of 

 tumultuous deposition in the faces of these quarries. The shore 

 must have had a gentle slope, and no wide sheet of water before it; 

 otherwise, the powerful waves of a great lake or ocean frith, would 

 have left their common marks. The width of the valley of the 

 Somme, as it now exists, could not have been greatly exceeded; and 

 if we suppose a river current, we can understand why the flint im- 

 plements should fall from canoes or floats, or favorite Ashing stations, 

 and lie where they fell, while the naked corpse of any unfortunate 

 savage drowned at his trade would be floated out to sea. 



There is no reason to suppose any great physical break in the his- 

 tory of man upon the earth. Granted that the English Channel has 

 been eroded ; the action was perhaps characterized by a deliberate 

 regularity. Granted that the change which determined the incipient 

 necessity for its erosion, was some great change of sea level in North- 

 western Europe; it does not follow that the change, however great, 

 was not equally gradual. We may regard the banks of the Somme 

 as haunted by men from the beginning of human life in Europe ; 

 whether they were washed by a small river, or by the narrow arm of 

 the sea. No doubt there have been epochs of entire submergence, 

 during which all Northern France was once more made a shallow 

 sea, like the North Sea now. But the race of men and the races of 

 beasts may have retired so slowly before the scarcely noticeable ad- 

 vance of the sea level edge, and so slowly pursued it on its retreat 

 again, as not to have been aware of any change in what to them was 



