287 
Correspondence — Mr. Henry Norton. 
to their action? .... Now among the debris which have filled 
these cavities . . . bones of the great mammalia of the Quaternary 
period have been found.” (Elephant.) 
There is a difference of opinion as to the date of the excavation : 
M. Royer contending that it was before, and M. Beigrand that 
it was after, the excavation of the valleys; but both agree in 
attributing these pits to the action of a vast quantity of water, 
whether produced by a diluvial cataclysm, or eise by the incessant rains 
of the Pluvial period in which they both believe. The description 
immediately snggested to me a sti'ong resemblance to “ Grimes 
Graves,” near Brandon, an acconnt of which will be found in the 
Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series, 
vol. ii. p. 419, in an article on the opening of Grimes Graves, in 
Norfolk, by the Bev. William Greenwell, M.A., F.S.A. 
Beyond all question Grimes Graves were excavated by the manu- 
facturers of flint implements ; and they were sunk to a deptli of 30 
or 40 feet in order to reach a layer of flint especially suited to their 
purpose. There are some circumstances mentioned by M. Royer in 
which his pits agree with these : their great number, the subter- 
ranean communication one with another, and lastly the form, so far 
as it is snggested by the French words ‘ puit ’ and ‘ gouffre,’ both 
applied to these pits. M. Royer speaks of “ capricious forms,” which 
seems to betray the fact, that he is puzzled to know how tbose vast 
waters could have done it so regularly (?). The depth of “some of 
them,” 30 to 40 metres, is indeed somewhat staggering, being three 
times the depth of the Brandon pits, and the rock is not Chalk, 
but corresponds in age to our Portland. M. Contejean, in his 
“ Elements de Geologie et de Paleontologie,” p. G20, describes the 
“ terrain jurassique ” as consisting in thick argillaceous and 
calcareous beds (massifs), often irregularly alternating, and as 
including, at various levels, ferruginous layers, and layers of flint 
noclules. And at p. 426 he says, siliceous nodules (rognons) exist in 
all sedimentary deposits, but especially in the Jura limestone and 
in chalk. What is the precise nature of the Upper Oolite in 
Burgundy and Champagne my library does not give me the means 
of knowing. Burat only remarks that it does not present such 
marked forms (due to the outcrop of limestone) as the middle and 
lower Oolite ; the argillaceous part (assise) at the base is but little 
developed ; the greyish or yellowish-grey calcareous beds (calcaires) 
of the upper part (assise), which are found at first in isolated 
outliers, on the summits of the middle stage (etage moyen), end by 
formitig, at the foot of those summits, an undulating surface of hills 
with more or less gentle slopes, with altitudes of not more than 150 
and 200 metres, the inelines and escarpments of which are less 
conspicuous. Among localities where the beds may be studied, he 
mentions Bar-le-duc, Bar-sur-Seine, and Auxerre ; and says that in 
the Portland beds the limestone is too much divided to be quarried, 
and forms stony plateaux (p. 440). It does not appear from these 
authorities that any insuperable impediment exists to such pits 
having been sunk by man ; and the Suggestion is countenanced by 
