FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 



203 



" It is probable," lie continues, " that when the peoples of Asia enri- 

 grated westward on the look out for fertile countries, still retaining their 

 fondness for stones, whether as a custom, a religion, or a sign, we 

 know not, they established themselves naturally in the valleys, then 

 deeper than at the present time, and watered by rivers which 

 offered them, with resources of all kinds, a milder temperature than 

 could be met with on the elevated plains. It*is probable that often- 

 times they were obliged to evacuate their habitations in consequence 

 of considerable floods : hence the confusion of the remains so precipi- 

 tately abandoned ; flints, with rolled stones of every kind, and real 

 fossil-remains washed from the real diluvium, mixed with the bones 

 of the animals, domestic or savage, drowned in the inundations." 



In the sand-pits at St. Acheul, near Amiens, hatchets have been 

 found, which, though coarsely worked, appear to belong to two epochs; 

 some formed out of chesnut-brown — almost yellow flint, and with 

 very round edges, apparently coming from a long way off, being 

 much water-worn ; the others in bluish-black flint with white spots, 

 more or less sharp, with very flat edges, do not appear to have been 

 rolled at all. The angles in these last are as sharp as when they left 

 the hand of the workman ; and one would say they had been fashioned 

 on the very spot in which they are found. In fact, it is very easy to 

 find rolled flints from which precisely similar hatchets could be made. 



M. Robert has in his possession the largest hatchet found in this 

 locality ; it is thirty centimetres long, and weighs one thousand eight 

 hundred grammes, and has, evidently been made from one of the 

 cylindrical flints which there abound. 



Although the bed in which these celts have been found is forty 

 metres above the level of the Somme, the greatest resemblance exists 

 between it and those at Precy-sur-Oise, and near the Seine at Paris. 

 Like these last the lower strata are composed of rolled stones, which 

 contain in their cavities white sand and very delicate fresh-water 

 shells (principally Lymnea), which would inevitably have been 

 reduced to fragments in a strong current. The upper strata consists 

 of a thick deposit of yellowish sand. 



One finds also at St. Acheul boulders of sandstone, which, however, 

 are smaller than those at Precy on the Oise, which in their turn are 

 smaller than those of the Paris basin. In fact, the size of these 

 boulders is exactly proportional to the transporting force, whether ice 

 or current. 



The nature of these worked flints may throw some light on the 

 localities in which they are found, where all other means fail us. 



In the Commune of Gouvieux (Oise) there is an abrupt eminence, 

 called Toutvoyes, where exists what is generally supposed to be a 

 Roman camp. M. Robert attributes it to the Gauls, the first inhabi- 

 tants ; for on carefully examining the locality, which was admirably 

 chosen as a strategical position, he found spread upon the limestone 

 soil a considerable number of hatchets, arrow-heads, and darts, formed 

 out of flints obtained from the neighbouring chalk, or the fluviatile 



