Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/152

134 especially as many tusks of a hippopotamus have been obtained from the gravel of St. Roch—some of these recently by Mr. Prestwich; while M. Garnier of Amiens has procured a fine elephant's molar from the same pits, which Dr. Falconer refers to Elephas antiquus, see fig. 19, p. 133. Hence I infer that both these animals co-existed with man.

The alluvial formations of Montiers are very instructive in another point of view. If, leaving the lower gravel of that place, which is topped with loam or brick-earth (of which the upper portion is about thirty feet above the level of the Somme), we ascend the chalky slope to the height of about eighty feet, another deposit of gravel and sand, with fluviatile shells in a perfect condition, occurs, indicating most clearly an ancient river-bed, the waters of which ran habitually at that higher level before the valley had been scooped out to its present depth. This superior deposit is on the same side of the Somme, and about as high, as the lowest part of the celebrated formation of St. Acheul, two or three miles distant, to which I shall now allude.

The terrace of St. Acheul may be described as a gently sloping ledge of chalk, covered with gravel, topped as usual with loam or fine sediment, the surface of the loam being 100 feet above the Somme, and about 150 above the sea.

Many stone coffins of the Gallo-Roman period have been dug out of the upper portion of this alluvial mass. The trenches made for burying them sometimes penetrate to the depth of eight or nine feet from the surface, entering the upper part of No. 3 of the sections Nos. 21 and 21 They prove that when the Romans were in Gaul they found this terrace in the same condition as it is now, or rather as it was before the removal of so much gravel, sand, clay, and loam, for repairing roads, and for making bricks and pottery. In the annexed section, which I observed during my last visit in 1860, it will be seen that a fragment of an elephant's tooth