m H. Hoicorfh—A Great Pont- Glacial Flood. 229 



they must be read by those who want to understand the real con- 

 ditions of the problem, and who will find in them matter for deep 

 reflection, and naturally, for their author was a very patient inquirer, 

 who was equally skilled as a geologist and an engineer, and what 

 he had to say on a subject he had studied so long is naturall}'^ of the 

 greatest authority. The cumulative character of the proofs, the 

 number of curious facts which are brought to bear, geological, 

 palasontological, dynamical, and mechanical, all tending to one con- 

 clusion, is certainly very convincing. 



M. Belgrand contributed a memoir to the Brussels Congress of 

 Anthropology, which is more readily quoted. In this memoir he 

 says : " Many other facts tend to prove that a great mass of waters 

 has ploughed up the plains of the North of France and of Belgium. 

 I do not mean to say that there did not exist depressions in these 

 plains, but all bear the mai'ks of a violent flood of water. . . . These 

 diluvial currents were destructive and were consequently charged 

 with a great quantity of earth. It was a veritable sea of mud which 

 was moved. . . . The diluvial currents which modelled the valleys 

 have passed over all the plains of the North of France and of 

 Belgium, and when, in consequence of the lowering of the waters, 

 the currents lost their force, they have let fall this double deposit ; 

 coarse at the base, and fine above. The slightly undulating plateaux 

 like those of Belgium, French Flanders, Picardy, the Pays 

 de Caux, the Vescin both French and Norman, etc., etc., have 

 preserved this muddy deposit universally of an ochreous colour, 

 and it is known as red loam (limon rouge). Above it is the vegetable 

 soil and the brick-earth of Belgium and the North of France. . . . 

 The currents which excavated the valleys have thrown down on the 

 convex surfaces of the corners or turning angles (toiirnants) the solid 

 material excavated from the concave sides of the valleys or dragged 

 by the water from the bottoms of the valleys, forming what are 

 called terraces. Eventually, when the waters subsided, the double 

 layer of sediment (i.e. the coarse and fine) was spread over these 

 terraces. Sometimes it has penetrated into the iDody of the ter- 

 raced deposits, sometimes it remains in two layers upon their surface 

 (Comte Rendu, p. 133). 



M. Tardy, in a communication to the French Geological Society, 

 speaks as follows : — " From a comparison of the evidence furnished by 

 the Cone de la Tiniere to M. Morlot, with that of the Saone, and 

 with the results of the studies of M. Debray on the turbaries of 

 Ancre, we must conclude that at the commencement of the Neolithic 

 age the climate still felt the effects of the Quaternary period, lohich 

 came to an end by a great cataclysm. In truth, the worked flints of 

 Solutre (Palaeolithic implements), which have been found in the 

 marls in the valley of the Saone, and the first traces of the Neolithic 

 age, there are about two metres of deposits which indicate a lacuna, 

 a hiatus, a complete absence of man, when they were deposited. At the 

 base of this formation of two metres thickness is a deposit which we 

 can trace over all the plateaux. This deposit of slight thicTcness has 

 been left by a current sufficiently violent to turn over all the boulders 



