148 ABSENCE OF HUMAN BONES EXPLAINED. CHAP. vnr. 



specimens of fresh-water and brackish -water shells, such as 

 Unio and Dreissena, of living species ; and in clay brought up 

 from below the sand, shells of Tellina, Lutraria, and Cardium, 

 all of species now inhabiting the adjoining sea. 



One or two wrecked Spanish vessels, and arms of the same 

 period, have rewarded the antiquaries who had been watching 

 the draining operations in the hope of a richer harvest, and 

 who were not a little disappointed at the result. In a peaty 

 tract on the margin of one part of the lake a few coins were 

 dug up ; but if history had been silent, and if there had been 

 a controversy whether man was already a denizen of this 

 planet at the time when the area of the Haarlem lake was 

 under water, the archaeologist, in order to answer this ques 

 tion, must have appealed, as in the case of the valley of the 

 Somme, not to fossil bones, but to works of art embedded in 

 the superficial strata. 



Mr. Staring, in his valuable memoir on the ( Geological Map 

 of Holland,' has attributed the general scarcity of human 

 bones in Dutch peat, notwithstanding the many works of art 

 preserved in it, to the power of the humic and sulphuric 

 acids to dissolve bones, the peat in question being plenti 

 fully impregnated with such acids. His theory may be cor 

 rect, but it is not applicable to the gravel of the Valley of 

 the Somme, in which the bones of fossil mammalia are fre 

 quent, nor to the uppermost fresh-water strata forming the 

 bottom of a large part of the Haarlem Lake, in which it is 

 not pretended that such acids occur. 



The primitive inhabitants of the Valley of the Somme 

 may have been too wary and sagacious to be often surprised 

 and drowned by floods, which swept away many an incautious 

 elephant or rhinoceros, horse and ox. But even if those rude 

 hunters had cherished a superstitious veneration for the 

 Somme, and had regarded it as a sacred river (as the modern 

 Hindoos revere the Granges), and had been in the habit of 



