154 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



the north and north-east of France up to heights of 600 or 7 00 feet 

 above the sea. In the valleys, as I have said, it reposes upon 

 gravels, but above the level to which these extend it lies either 

 upon so-called "diluvium rouge," or upon the basement-rock, 

 which in those regions is generally chalk. The French loss 

 usually consists of an upper very fine-grained, non- calcareous 

 reddish portion (terre a briques), which is extensively used for 

 brickmaking, and a lower lighter coloured portion (Union grassier) 

 which is coarser, more or less calcareous, and seldom or never 

 plastic or suitable for bricks. Frequently the under part of this 

 limon grossier is charged with broken and cracked flints, which 

 have not been rolled about, but are sharply angular, and have 

 evidently not travelled far. 



The fossils of the French loss consist chiefly of land-shells, 

 with here and there (in the valley-loss) a river-shell. Most of 

 the species are still natives of Northern France, some, however, 

 having now a more northerly range. The mammalian remains, 

 like those of the German loss, are chiefly of temperate, boreal, 

 and alpine forms, such as mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse, 

 urus, saiga, reindeer, marmot, ibex, etc. Palaeolithic implements 

 have likewise been discovered in and underneath the loss of the 

 Seine, the Somme, and other valleys. I may add that as a rule 

 the loss or limon of the plateaux is poor in organic remains of 

 any kind. 



Although the loss occurs upon the plateaux and hills up to 

 a height of nearly 350 feet above the bottoms of the larger 

 river- valleys, such as that of the Seine, it is yet always bounded, 

 as Mr. Prestwich remarks, by higher hills flanking the plains 

 and the lower ranges. Beyond its limits the only superficial 

 accumulation we encounter is a reddish ochreous earth charged 

 with flints, which is merely the decomposed upper surface of 

 the Chalk, and to which the name of diluvium rouge has often 

 been applied. 



Passing into Belgium we are confronted with similar pheno- 

 mena. The ancient Pleistocene gravels with their mammalian 

 remains are confined as in France to the valleys, where they are 



