CHAP. vii. PEAT OF ABBEVILLE. 109 



corresponding in that respect to the Danish mosses before de 

 scribed (Ch. II.). Like them, it belongs to the recent period ; 

 all the embedded mammalia, as well as the shells, being of 

 the same species as those now inhabiting Europe. The bones 

 of quadrupeds are very numerous, as I can bear witness, 

 having seen them brought up from a considerable depth near 

 Abbeville, almost as often as the dredging instrument was 

 used. Besides remains of the beaver, I was shown, in the col 

 lection of M. Boucher de Perthes, two perfect lower jaws with 

 teeth of the bear, Ursus Arctos ; and in the Paris Museum 

 there is another specimen, also from the Abbeville peat. 



The list of mammalia already comprises a large proportion 

 of those proper to the Swiss lake-dwellings, and to the shell- 

 mounds and peat of Denmark ; but unfortunately as yet no 

 special study has been made of the French fauna, like that 

 by which the Danish and Swiss zoologists and botanists have 

 enabled us to compare the wild and tame animals and the 

 vegetation of the age of stone with that of the age of iron. 



Notwithstanding the abundance of mammalian bones in 

 the peat, and the frequency of stone implements of the Celtic 

 and Gallo-Eoman periods, M. Boucher de Perthes has only 

 met with three or four fragments of human skeletons. 



At some depth in certain places in the valley near Abbe 

 ville, the trunks of alders have been found standing erect as 

 they grew, with their roots fixed in an ancient soil, afterwards 

 covered with peat. Stems of the hazel, and nuts of the same, 

 abound ; trunks, also, of the oak and walnut. The peat 

 extends to the coast, and is there seen passing under the 

 sand-dunes and below the sea-level. At the mouth of the 

 river Canche, which joins the sea near the embouchure of 

 the Somme, yew trees, firs, oaks, and hazels have been dug 

 out of peat, which is there worked for fuel, and is about three 

 feet thick.* During great storms, large masses of compact 



* D'Archiac, Hist, des Progres, vol. ii. p. 154. 



