BRITISn ASSOCIATION MKIOTINO. 
299 
rcf^ioii. II. appears liiai ilio position of the rude iliiii-iinpleiticuts, wliicli arc 
uiiecpiivocaily oi" liuitian workuiaiiship, is sucli, at Abbeville aiul Amieiis, as to 
siiow tliat they arc as ancient as a great mass of gravel vi'liieli (ills the lower 
])arts of the valley between those two cities, extending above and below them. 
'I'liis gravel is an ancient llnviatilc alluvium by no means confined to the lowest 
depressions (where extensive and deep peat-mosses now exist), but is some- 
times also seen covering the slopes of the boundary hills of chalk at elevations 
of eighty or one hundred feet above the level of the Sommo. Ciianges, there- 
fore, in the physical boundary of the country, comprising both the filling up 
^^•il,h sediment and drift, and the pjirtial re-excavation of the valley, have hap- 
pened since old river-beds were, at some former period, the receptacles of the 
worked flints. The number of these last, already computed at above fourteen 
thousand in an aiea of ft)urteen miles in length, and half a-mile in breadth, has 
afforded to a. succession of visitors aljuudant opportunities of verifying the true 
geological position of the implcmenls. 
" The old alluvium, whether at higher or lower levels, consists not only of the 
coarse gravel with worked flints above mentioned, but also of super-imposed 
beds of sand and loam, in which are many fresh-water and landshells, for the 
most i)art entire, aud of species now living in the same part of Prance. With 
tiic shells are found bones of the Mammoth and an extinct Ehinoceros, E. iicho- 
rhinus, an extinct species of deer, and fossil remains of the horse, ox, and 
other animals. These are met with in (he overlying beds, and sometimes also 
in the gravel where the implements occur. At Menchecoui-t, in the suburbs 
of Abbeville, a nearly entire skeleton of the Siberian Ehinoceros is said to ha^-e 
bcnn taken out about forty years ago, a fact affording an answer to the question 
often raised, as to whether the bones of (he extinct mammalia could have been 
washed out of an older alluvium into a newer one, and so redeposited and 
nunglcd with the relics of human workmanship. Far-fetched as was this 
hypothesis, I am informed that it would not, if granted, ha\'e seriously shaken 
the proof of the high antiquity of the human ])roductious, for that proof is in- 
dependent of organic evidence or fossil remains, and is based on physical data. 
As was stated to irs last yeaj- by Su' Charles LyeU, we should still have to allow 
time for great denudation of the chalk, and the removal from place to place, 
and the sju'cading out over the length and breadth of a large valley of heaps of 
chalk flints in beds from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, covered by loams and 
sands of equal thickness, these last often tranquilly deposited, all of which, 
operations woidd require the supposition of a great lapse of time. 
That the mammalia fauna, preserved under such cu-cumstances, should be 
foimd to di\ crge from the type now established in the same region, is consistent 
W'ith experience ; but the fact of a foreign and extinct fauna \A"as not needed to 
indicate the great age of the gravel containing the worked flints. 
Another independent proof of the age of the same gravel and its associated 
fossiliferous loam is derived from the large deposits of peat above alluded to, 
in the Valley of the Sonnne, which contain not only monuments of the Roman, 
but also those of an older stone period, usually called Celtic. Bones, also, of 
the bear, of the species stUl inhabiting the Pyrenees, and of the beaver, and 
many large stumps of trees, not yet well examined by botanists, are found in 
(he same peat, the oldest portion of which belongs to times far beyoug those 
of tradition ; yet distinguished geologists are of opinion that the growth of all 
the vegetation, and even the original scooping out of the lioUows containing it, 
are events long posterior in date to the gravel with flint implements — nay, pos- 
terior even to the formation of the uppermost of the layers of loam with fresh 
water shells overlying the gravel. 
The exploration of caverns, both in the British isles and other parts of 
Europe, has in the last few years been prosecuted with renewed ardour and 
