Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/142

124 species above enumerated:—Buccinum undatum, Littorina littorea, Nassa reticulata, Purpura lapillus, Tellina solidula, Cardium edule, and fragments of some others. Several of these I have myself collected entire, though in a state of great decomposition, lying in the white sand called 'sable aigre' by the workmen. They are all littoral species now proper to the contiguous coast of France. Their occurrence in a fossil state associated with freshwater shells at Menchecourt, had been noticed as long ago as 1836 by

MM. Ravin and Baillon, before M. Boucher de Perthes commenced the researches which have since made the locality so celebrated. The numbers since collected preclude all idea of their having been brought inland as eatable shells by the fabricators of the flint hatchets found at the bottom