Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/78

42 implement used by him, proves by its wide distribution that it held this distinction for a very long time. Typical specimens have been discovered not only in all European countries (except Holland and Scandinavia), but in Algeria, Egypt, Sahara, Congo, the Cape, Somaliland, Palestine, Persia, and India (Pl. II.)

Sir Charles Lyell points out that the mammalia represented in the fluviatile alluvium at Gray's Thurrock were Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros merckii, Hippopotamus major, a species of horse, ox, bear, stag, etc., a fact which suggests that these remains in the Thames valley belong to the Chelléen or Acheuléen epoch Antiquity of Man, p. 157).

Professor Geikie also informs us that "in the valley of the Thames the 'drifts' with palæaeolithic implements and pleistocene mammalian remains are everywhere overlaid by 'trail,' but are certainly younger in the main than the great chalky boulder-clay, and must therefore likewise be assigned to interglacial times" (Great Ice Age, 3rd ed., p. 644).

Acheuléen.

The valley of the Somme lies in a chalk district bounded by hills from 200 to 300 feet in height, and is of special interest as being the scene of M. Boucher de Perthes' discovery of palæoliths at Abbeville, some fourteen years before they were scientifically recognised to be the work of human hands. M. de Perthes commenced to collect these implements in 1841, which he discovered in ordinary gravel-pits, then being largely worked for industrial purposes. They were found at a depth of 8 to 10 metres, generally at the bottom of the worked pits. He styled them "antediluvian," because they came from the lowest beds of ancient alluvial strata bordering on the valley of the Somme, which geologists termed "diluvium." Along with them were found bones of the mammoth and other animals, which Cuvier characterised as Ossements fossiles. Dr Rigollot, of Amiens, at length became a convert to the genuineness of M. de Perthes' discoveries, and on looking for similar implements in his own neighbourhood, he soon found them in great numbers, chiefly in the gravel-pits at Saint Acheul. Some of these implement-bearing gravels were almost on a level with the