'132 SECTION OF ALLUVIUM OF ST. ACHEUL. 



Flint Implements in Gravel near Amiens. 

 Gravel of St. Acheul. 



"When we ascend the valley of the Somme, from Abbeville 

 to Amiens, a distance of about twenty-five miles, we observe 

 a repetition of all the same alluvial phenomena which we 

 have seen exhibited at Menchecourt and its neighborhood, 

 with the single exception of the absence of marine shells and 

 of Cyrena Jluminalis. We find lower-level gravel, such as 

 InTo. 2, fig. 7. p. 107, and higher-level alluvium, such as No. 3, 

 the latter rising to one hundred feet above the jDlain, which 

 at Amiens is about fifty feet above the level of the river at 

 Abbeville. In both the upper and lower gravels, as Dr. Ei- 

 gollot stated in 1854, flint tools and the bones of extinct 

 animals, together with river shells and land shells of living 

 species, abound. 



Immediatcl}' below Amiens, a great mass of stratified gravel, 

 slightly elevated above the alluvial plain of the Somme, is 

 seen at St. Eoch, and half a mile farther down the vallej' at 

 Montiers. Between these two places, a small tributary stream, 

 called the Celle, joins the Somme. In the gravel at Montiers 

 Mr. Prestwieh and I found some flint knives, one of them flat 

 on one side, but the other cuvefully worked, and exhibit- 

 ing many fractures, clearly produced by blows skilfull}^ ap- 

 plied. Some of these knives were taken from so low a level 

 as to satisfy us that this great bed of gravel at Montiers, as 

 well as that of the contiguous quarries of St. Eoch, which 

 seems to be a continuation of the same deposit, may be 

 referred to the himian period. Dr. Eigollot had already' 

 mentioned flint hatchets as obtained by him from St. Eoch, 

 but, as none have been found there of late years, his statement 

 was thought to require confirmation. The discovery, therefore, 

 of these flint knives in gravel of the same age was interesting, 



