230 E. H. Hoivorth—A Great Post- Glacial Flood. 



loMcTi it encountered and sufficiently charged with mud to cover them 

 with a coating of a red clayey character. . . . This cataclysm 

 evidently preceded the Neolithic civilization, and succeeded the 

 Palasolithic one. As to its duration I can say nothing. Nevertheless, 

 its violence, and the small deposit it left behind, would suggest that 

 it was only of" short duration " (Tardy, Classification de I'epoque 

 qiiaternaire, Bull. Soc. Geol. de France, 3rd ser. vol. vi. pp. 401. 402). 



Again we are told the diluvium rouge at such places as Bresse, 

 where it can be easily distinguished, and where it occupies the 

 summits of the plateaux, could only be the product of the action of 

 a mass of water covering the whole plateau at a period posterior to 

 the Quaternary formation, and anterior to the Neolithic and modern 

 deposits {id. vol. vii. p. 507). 



M. d'Archiac, speaking of the deposit we are discussing, as it 

 occurs in the department of the Aisne, says, " It appears to be the 

 result of a considerable inundation coming from the south-east, 

 and which has enveloped with a vast mantle the valley of the 

 Ehine, a part of Ehenish Prussia, Holland, Belgium, and the North 

 of France." — (Descr. geol. de I'Aisne, p. 67.) Again, speaking of the 

 department of the Oise, he concludes that the layer of clay and sand 

 {diluvium gris) of the valleys there is identical in origin with the 

 layer covering the plateaux, and says their " difference merely marks 

 two phases of the same phenomenon, and depends on the swiftness, 

 depth, and direction of the waters at various points. Where the 

 current was the deepest and swiftest, i.e. at the opening of the 

 secondary valleys into the primary ones, the diluvium containing 

 flints is thicker, the flints are more rounded, and, if the neighbour- 

 ing heights are of Tertiary strata, there is found in it fragments of 

 the rocks, shells, and sands, which form these deposits, mixed with, 

 flints from the chalk. The alluvion ancienne {i.e. the upper 

 diluvium and limon des plateaux of other writers) is more sandy 

 and fine, and the shells gradually diminish in numbers as its texture 

 gets finer, and we get on to higher ground." — (Essai sur la top. geog. 

 du dep. de I'Oise, p. 529.) All this surely points to the mantle 

 having been distributed by a great flood of water. Again, the same 

 author says, " These deposits are not stratified in the true sense of the 

 word. They do not occur in regular layers, continuous and distinct, 

 like the sediment formed in the sea or in lakes. The inequality 

 of their density, the different levels at which they occur, their dis- 

 continuity, and the variability of their character, are all proofs that 

 they oive their origin to torrential ivaters. irregular in their volume 

 and their power of transporting materials, which have carried along 

 with the debris of the surrounding rocks the bones of the mammals 

 which formerly inhabited the district. These latter become rarer 

 as we leave the bottoms of the valleys, and in the ancient alluvium 

 one hardly finds any of them, and such as there are, are always 

 somewhat altered. We may conclude that the first torrents which 

 swept over the country swept into the valleys all they met with on 

 the surface." — (Bull, de la Soc. Geologique, 1845, p. 336.) 



M. Trutat, in speaking of these deposits, distinguishes them sharply. 



