Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 2.djvu/67

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undisturbed Beds of Gravel, Sand, and Clay.
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ant evidence is that of Dr. Rigollot, who received the distinction of being elected a Corresponding Member of the Institute but shortly before his death in 1856. In his "Mémoire sur des Instruments en Silex trouvés à St. Acheul, près Amiens," published in 1855, he enters fully into the question of the nature of the drift and the part of the beds in which the worked flints are found, and states distinctly that, after the most careful examination, he came to the conclusion that these implements are at St. Acheul found exclusively in the true drift, which incloses the remains of the extinct mammals, and at a depth of ten feet and more from the surface.

Of the accuracy of all these concurrent statements the experience of Mr. Prestwich and myself fully convinced us, and we had, moreover, the opportunity of seeing one at least of the worked flints in situ, at the gravel-pit near St. Acheul. Mr. Prestwich, who had been there a day or two previously, had left instructions with the workmen that in case of their discovering one of these "langues de chat" imbedded in the gravel it was to be left untouched, and he was at once to be apprized. The announcement of such a discovery was accordingly telegraphed to us at Abbeville, and the following morning we proceeded to Amiens, where we were joined by MM. Dufour and Gamier, the President and Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Picardy, who accompanied us to the pit near St. Acheul. There, at a depth of eleven feet from the surface, and about four feet six inches from the bottom of the pit, in the bank or wall of gravel, was an implement of the second class that I have described, its narrower edge projecting, and itself for the greater part dovetailed into the gravel. It was lying in a horizontal position, and the gravel around it hard and compact, and in such a condition that it was quite impossible that the implement could have been inserted into it by the workmen for the sake of reward. The beds above it consisting of rudely stratified gravel, sand, and clay, presenting a vertical face, showed not the slightest traces of having been disturbed, with the exception of the twelve or eighteen inches of surface soil, and the lines of the division between the beds were entirely unbroken; so much so that their different characters can be recognised on a photograph of the section taken for Mr. Prestwich. Besides the langue de chat thus seen in situ, the workmen in the pit supplied us with a considerable number of these implements, as well as with some of the oval form, and gratefully received a trifling recompense in return. They shewed us the spots where they said several of them had been found (two of them that morning, at the depth of fifteen and nineteen feet respectively from the surface), and there appeared no reason to doubt their assertions. I may add, that since our return