282 
ME. PEESTWICH OX FLIXT-BIPLEAIEXTS. 
unavoidably short notice, I had to start alone, although I was afterwards joined by my 
friend Mr. John Evans, F.S.A. * 
Thus the inquiry had not the advantage of all the co-operation for which I had hoped ; 
nor was I more fortunate in Paris, for my friends there, upon whom I called in the hope 
that they might join me, were absent in the country. On my arrival at Abbeville. 
M. Bouckee de Peethes at once accompanied me to the several locahties he had described. 
opened his interesting collection for examination at my leisure, and placed me in full 
possession of all the facts bearing upon his discoveries. To M. !NL\ecotte, Curator of 
the excellent local Museum of Abbeville, I am indebted for information on many points 
respecting the organic remains and the recent fauna of the district. To some members 
of the engineers “des Ponts et Chaussees” I have to express my obligations for the 
various levels taken through the instrumentality of M. Boechee de Peethes. At 
Amiens I was most kindly assisted in the furtherance of this investigation by ^I. Chaeles 
P iNSAED, a Member of the “ Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie,” who liberally placed 
at my disposal a small but special collection of teeth and bones he had found at 
St. Acheul, and obligingly undertook the determination of several levels which were not 
given on the Ordnance Maps of that district. See Appendix (F). 
§ 2. SECTIOXS AT ABBEVILLE AXD A^EXS. 
Abbeville and Amiens are both situated in the valley of the Somme, the fii'st at a 
distance of about fourteen miles, and the second of forty-one miles, from the sea. The 
surrounding district consists of gently undulating elevated plains of chalk, capped here 
and there by outliers of tertiary strata, and elsewhere partly bare and partly covered by 
a few feet of fine light red or yellow loam and clay, in places mixed with angular fing- 
ments of flints. The river valleys are narrow, often exhibit on their flanks thick deposits 
of loam and gravel, while the middle is usually a flat level of marsh and peatf overlying 
gravel. The loam, brick-earth, or loess forms a very marked feature in this usually 
bare chalk district, being principally accumulated in thick irregular and local masses 
on the sides and flanks of the valleys. This is especially the case for some distance 
both above and below Amiens, as well as up the greater number of the lateral valleys. 
It extends to various elevations. A bed of gravel also spreads over some of the lower 
hills flanking the valley of the Somme. For full particulars of the geology of the district. 
I beg, however, to refer to the works before quoted of M. Buteux and Dr. E.vvin. 
The fall of the Somme valley J is very gradual, its elevation at Abbe^ille above the level 
of mean tide of the sea at St. Valery being 18 feet, at Amiens 60 feet. Betu*een these 
towns the mean width of the valley, which varies but little, is rather less than a mile. 
The hills rise gradually to heights generally of from 200 to 400 feet, and nowhere 
* Mr. Evans also has given (June 1859) to the Society of Antiquaries, an account of our visit to 
Abbeville and Amiens, discussing the subject from an antiquarian point of view. His paper is in course ot 
publication in the ‘ Ai’chseologia,’ vol. xxxviii. 
t The silt and peat in the vaUey of the Somme varies in thickness from 10 to 30, or even nearly 40 teet. 
X The mean lea^el of the river is about S feet below that of the vaUey at Abbeville. 
