SPIRIT OF GOOD BOOKS. 



319 



opposite side of the road to the other pit, a well was dug through twenty- 

 five feet of gravel and sand, but no exact particulars of it were kept. A few 

 yards beyona this the gravel passes under the great mass of silt and peat 

 filling the valley of the Somme. In the other direction (*. <?., up the hill), the 

 chalk comes to the surface at the distance of a few yards beyond and above 

 the pits ; but whether it forms a cliff against which the pleistocene beds abut, 

 or whether it passes by a rapid slope under them, there is no evidence to show. 



" No organic remains have been found in the upper clay and rubble, b b ; 

 The loam c contains a few mammalian remains. The only specimens, however, 

 collected at present are teeth of horse and bones of ruminants and of Ele- 

 phants, all much decomposed. Some flint implements are recorded from th 

 bed, and shells of Clausilia nigricans, Helix orbustorum, Helix hispida, and 

 Pupa muscorum. Of these the Helix and Pupa are common, and the Clausilia 

 very rare. 



" To the sands and gravels d and e, which may be considered as one bed, 

 the greatest interest attaches, on account of the flint implements found in 

 them, and the abundance of mammalian remains, land, freshwater, and marine 

 shells. The bones mostly occur in or on the seam of flint -gravel e : they are 

 often entire, but the bulk are hi fragments. The land and freshwater shells 

 are most abundant in the sand d ; while the marine shells are more common in 

 the gravel e, although a few are scattered through d. 



" Returning back through Abbeville, and ascending the gently sloping 

 ground on the east of the town, Moulin Quignon is shortly reached, where, at 

 a height of a hundred and six feet above tae mean level of the sea at St. Valery, 

 is a bed of gravel showing this section. 



Fig. 4.— Gravel-pit adjoining the Moulin Quignon, near Abbeville. 



" Amiens —On the verge of the hills, and at a distance of three-fourths of 

 a mile south-east from the railway-station, are situated the very interesting and 

 extensive pits of St. Acheul. According to the measurements of M. Pinsard, 

 the mean height of the ground here is a hundred and forty -nine feet above the 

 mean tide level at St. Valery, and eighty-nine feet above the Somme valley, 

 towards which it slightly inclines, till, as it approaches the valley, the ground 

 falls by a more rapid and sudden slope, while southward it stretches with a 

 gently undulating and gradually rising surface for many miles. The site of 

 the pits is not, however, commanded by any immediate high ground, but, on 



