102 INVESTIGATIONS MADE AT ABBEYILLE AND AMIENS. CHAP. vi. 



accumulate, and so long as there was a regular current 

 capable of carrying in fine mud and bones, no superficial 

 crust of stalagmite. In some passages, as before stated, sta 

 lagmite was wanting, while in one place five alternations of 

 stalagmite and sand were observed, seeming to indicate a 

 prevalence of more rainy seasons, succeeded by others, when 

 the water was for a time too low to flood the area where the 

 calcareous incrustation accumulated. 



If the regular sequence of the three deposits of pebbles, 

 mud, and stalagmite was the result of the causes above 

 explained, the order of superposition would be constant, 

 yet we could not be sure that the gravel in one passage 

 might not sometimes be coeval with the bone-earth or stalag 

 mite in another. 



If therefore the flint knives had not been very widely 

 dispersed, and if one of them had not been at the bottom of 

 the bone-earth, close to the leg of the bear above described, 

 their antiquity relatively to the extinct mammalia might 

 have been questioned. No coprolites were found in the 

 Brixham excavations, and very few gnawed bones. These 

 few may have been brought from some distance, before they 

 reached their place of rest. Upon the whole, the same con 

 clusion which Dr. Schmerling came to, respecting the filling 

 up of the caverns near Liege, seems applicable to the caves of 

 Brixham. 



Dr. Falconer, after aiding in the investigations above al 

 luded to near Torquay, stopped at Abbeville on his way to 

 Sicily, in the autumn of 1858, and saw there the collection of 

 M. Boucher de Perthes. Being at once satisfied that the flints 

 called hatchets had really been fashioned by the hand of man, 

 he urged Mr. Prestwich, by letter, thoroughly to explore the 

 geology of the Valley of the Somme. This he accordingly 

 accomplished, in company with Mr. John Evans, of the 

 Society of Antiquaries, and, before his return that same year, 



