Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
In the annexed section (Figure 21), which I observed during my last
visit in 1860, it will be seen that a fragment of an elephant's tooth is
noticed as having been dug out of unstratified sandy loam at the point
a, 11 feet from the surface. This was found at the time of my visit; and
at a lower point, at b, 18 feet from the surface, a large nearly entire
and unrolled molar of the same species was obtained, which is now in my
possession. It has been pronounced by Dr. Falconer to belong to Elephas
primigenius.
A stone hatchet of an oval form, like that represented at Figure 9, was
discovered at the same time, about one foot lower down, at c, in densely
compressed gravel. The surface of the fundamental Chalk is uneven
in this pit, and slopes towards the valley-plain of the Somme. In a
horizontal distance of 20 feet, I found a difference in vertical height
of 7 feet. In the chalky sand, sometimes occurring in interstices
between the separate fragments of flint, constituting the coarse gravel
Number 4, entire as well as broken freshwater shells are often met with.
To some it may appear enigmatical how such fragile objects could have
escaped annihilation in a river-bed, when flint tools and much gravel
were shoved along the bottom; but I have seen the dredging instrument
employed in the Thames, above and below London Bridge, to deepen the
river, and worked by steam power, scoop up gravel and sand from the
bottom, and then pour the contents pell-mell into the boat, and still
many specimens of Limnaea, Planorbis, Paludina, Cyclas, and other shells
might be taken out uninjured from the gravel.
It will be observed that the gravel Number 4 is obliquely stratified,
and that its surface had undergone denudation before the white sandy
loam Number 3 was superimposed. The materials of the gravel at d must
have been cemented or frozen together into a somewhat coherent mass
to allow the projecting ridge, d, to stand up 5 feet above the general
surface, the sides being in some places perpendicular. In Number 3 we
probably behold an example of a passage from river-silt to inundation
mud. In some parts of it, land shells occur.
It has been ascertained by MM. Buteux, Ravin, and other observers
conversant with the geology of this part of France, that in none of the
alluvial deposits, ancient or modern, are there any fragments of rocks
foreign to the basin of the Somme--no erratics which could only be
explained by supposing them to have been brought by ice, during a
general submergence of the country, from some other hydrographical
basin.
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