264 MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



are less than thirty feet above the river, and mark a con- 

 siderably later stage in the erosion of the valley. While 

 many of the implements found at Amiens seem to have 

 been somewhat worn and rolled, " others are as sharp and 

 fresh as when first made. . . . The bedding of the gravel is 

 extremely irregular and contorted, as though it had been 

 pushed about by a force acting from above ; and this, to- 

 gether with the occurrence of blocks of Tertiary sandstone 

 of considerable size, leads to the inference that both are 

 due to the action of river-ice. In the Seine Valley blocks 

 of still larger size, and transported from greater distances, 

 are found in gravels of the same age." 



" Flint implements are found under similar conditions 

 in many of the river- valleys of other parts of France, es- 

 pecially in the neighbourhood of Paris ; of Mons in Bel- 

 gium ; in Spain, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, in Port- 

 ugal, in Italy, and in Greece ; but they have not been dis- 

 covered in the drift-beds of Denmark, Sweden, or Russia, 

 nor is there any well-authenticated instance of the occur- 

 rence of palasoliths in Germany." * 



When once the fact had been established that man was 

 in northern France at the time of the deposition of the 

 high-level gravels of the Somme and the Seine, renewed 

 attention was directed to terraces of similar age in south- 

 ern England. One of these is that upon which the city 

 of London is built, and which, according to LyelPs descrip- 

 tion, "■ extends from above Maidenhead through the me- 

 tropolis to the sea, a distance from west to east of fifty 

 miles, having a width varying from two to nine miles. Its 

 thickness ranges commonly from five to fifteen feet." f 



For a long time geologists had been familiar with the 

 fact that these terraces of the Thames contain the remains 

 of numerous extinct animals, among which are included 



* Prestwich's Geology, vol. ii, pp. 481, 482. 

 f Antiquity of Man, pp. 154, 155. 



