GOSSIP • — ON ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 95 



The valley of the Somme and the hills by which it is bounded, 

 must at one time have been the bottom of a large cretaceous lake, 

 which communicated with the sea. When the elevation of this 

 basin into dry land occurred, the chalk arose covered continuously 

 with a loose and incoherent eocene formation of sand and gravel 

 containing contemporary mollusca. There is no evidence to show 

 that this eocene strata, lying directly on the chalk, was ever 

 inhabited, except by fresh water or land shells, up to the glacial 

 period. As this came on and continued, there may have been 

 great depression and submergence of the land — the loam and clay 

 being then deposited that cover the country, much thicker than 

 they now are, and destitute of fossils. There was a corresponding 

 re-elevation and denudation — the surface of the country rose slowly 

 above the reach of the water, but the configuration of the land 

 caused a broad, deep, and rapid stream, perhaps ice laden, to run 

 where the valley of the Somme now is, sweeping away what 

 remained there of the superficial deposit, eroding the eocene strata, 

 excavating the valley down to the chalk, and also eroding its sides. 

 This stream, as oscillations occurred, may have run at a higher or 

 lower level, but remained for a long time at the upper level (2 a) 

 where its eddies accumulated the upper level gravels, which ex- 

 tended on either side the valley towards its centre. The higher 

 dry land would have been overspread with herbage, and have 

 nourished and sustained living creatures — elephas primi genius, rhino- 

 ceros tichorinus, equus fossilis, and other extinctions which then had 

 roamed from more southern latitudes subsequent to the glacial era, 

 and their remains became embedded. Long previous to the time 

 of man's appearance on this scene, and before his creation, some of 

 these races became extinct. 



At length man in his continued migration, from the cradle of 

 the human race, arrived at and roamed over the country, as wild 

 as civilized man found the aborigines of this continent — wearing 

 the skins of beasts — using stone implements and flint weapons, and 

 possessed of the useful art of making rude pottery. He too peopled 

 the country for ages^ — hunted, and lived and died there. Suppose 

 now that the Noachian deluge affiected these latitudes — that another 

 great depression took place, and all the high hills were quietly 

 covered by the waters — and shortly afterwards a corresponding re- 



