NOTES A^'D QUERIES. 



75 



the chalk — exactly such a situation as both Celts and Scandinavians chose for 

 the tumuli of their great warriors. Many of Their tumuli are entirely formed 

 of stones heaped together, though most of them have earth mixed 'with the 

 stones. In Yorkshire we have tumuli larger than this at S:dnt Acheul would 

 seem to be — for instance, one near Braffords and TVauldby Wood, which is 

 probably that in which Ivar Beenlose, the son of Regner Lodbrog, caused 

 himself to be buried on the coast near the Humber, and which TTorsoe, in his 

 "Danes and Norwegians in England," mentions (at page 3Sj that TViUiam the 

 Conqueror caused to be opened. Another tumulus of greater size occurs 

 between Xewbald and Beverley, and others near Porkthorpe, between Drilfield 

 and Hunmanby. The size, therefore, is no objection to the patch at Saint 

 Acheul being a tumulus in which these flint hatchets are found ; and, observe, 

 they are not found in the drift at Saint Roch, nor in any of the other patches, 

 but they ought to be found throughout the whole of the drift in that loccility, 

 if deposited along with the drift itself. Moreover, if the hatchets had been 

 brought to Saint Acheul along with the origiual drift at the time of its deposi- 

 tion by nature, they would have been water- worn Uke the drift gravel itself ; 

 whereas they appear to be formed from rolled flints, but the worked part not in 

 the least water-worn, showing they were constructed since the water-wearing of 

 the companion drift in which they exist.* 



Prom a description by Mr. Tlower, I entertain great doubts whether this 

 patch of drift gravel on the summit of an elevation about one hundred feet higli 

 was deposited there at all by the drift forces ; but if it were so, the ancient 

 Celts may stiU have availed themselves of it as the covering, or tumulus of the 

 grave of one of their great chiefs. I much incline, however, to the opinion that 

 the natural rise of one hundred feet (the only one it seems thereabouts) has 

 been selected as the site of the tumulus, and the gravel brought at, or after 

 the funeral, from Samt Roch, and heaped over the ^ody, for it is clear that the 

 raised materials of many tumuli in England have been brought from some dis- 

 tance, and the labour of a whole tribe bestowed for a few weeks woidd suffice 

 to do that honour to the memory of their deceased chief at Saint Acheul, The 

 higher a chief was in the esteem of his people the larger his tumulus, and the 

 greater the pains bestowed on it. Some of these tumuli called by the Celts 

 cromlechs, had a stone chamber within them for the corpse, and in them, too, 

 the mound was not uufrequently composed of stones instead of earth — see Sir 

 Richard Colt Hoare's work on the subject, and "Wright's "Celt, Roman, and 

 Saxon," at page 63 of which you wiU tind it was always the desire of chiefs to 

 be bui'ied in lofty situations. Sometimes the body was deposited on the ground 

 and the tumulus heaped over it ; but in the Wolds of Yorkshire, the earth has 

 often been removed down to the chalk, and there the body deposited ; and I ap- 

 prehend if there was an original deposit of di-ifr gravel on the summit of the 

 hill at Saint Acheul, it would be removed down to the deposit preceeding it, and 

 the body there laid, and then the gravel again heaped on it. But as I said be- 

 fore, it is not improbable (as the patch of drift is only of the extent of a modem 

 dweUing-house) that it has aU been brought from Saint Roch. 



Stone hatchets have been found in British tumuli. Why not then ia Erench 

 ones ? 



I do not find any account of the precise sort of locality in which the Abbe- 

 ville hatchets are found ; but if they also are confined to particular spots iu the 

 drift bed, and not found m aU parts iudiscrinunately, it would go far m my mind 

 to establish the idea of those being graves where the hatchets "are found.' 



* Some specimens collected by il. Bouclier de Perthes, now by loan of ilr. Flower in my 

 possession, I think are sUghtlr warer-worru Some of these " celts" may have been, manu- 

 factured from flints taken'directly out of the chalk ; others, I am inclined to beheve, have 

 been mantif actured from large gravel flints. — Ed. Geologist. 



