One of the pits occupies the site of a Gallo-Roman cemetery, which appears to have continued in use for some centuries: large stone coffins, and the iron cramps of those in wood, are of frequent occurrence, hut personal ornaments are rarely met with. Roman coins are found from time to time, some as early as the reign of Claudius, and I purchased from one of the workmen a second-brass coin of Magnentius, with the letters AMB in the exergue, showing that it had been struck at AMBIANVM, the name given in late Roman times to the neighbouring town of Amiens, which by the Gauls was known as SAMAROBRIVA.
At the Moulin Quignon near Abbeville, which is near the summit of a hill of no great elevation, the beds of drift are more ochreous and more purely gravelly in their nature than at St. Acheul, and their thickness is about ten or twelve feet. In this case also they rest upon an irregular surface of chalk; and in the lower part of the beds, at but a slight distance above the chalk, occasionally accompanied by the bones and teeth of the Siberian mammoth and other animals, flints shaped by the hand of man are alleged to have been found. At Menchecourt, the beds of sand and loam attain a thickness of from twenty to thirty feet; and in a layer of flints at their base, among which are found shells, land and fresh water as well as marine, have also been discovered a number of mammalian remains, together with flints showing traces of the hand of man upon them.
The following is the section of the pit at Menchecourt, as taken by Mr. Prestwich:—
- 1. A mass of brown sandy clay, with angular fragments of flints and chalk rubble. No organic remains. Base very irregular and indented into bed No. 2.
2 to 12 feet.
- 2. A light-coloured sandy clay (sable à plaquer of the workmen), analogous to the loess, containing land shells (Pupa, Helix, Clausilia,) of recent species
8 to 25 feet.
- 3. White sand (sable aigre) with one to two feet of subangular flint gravel at base. This bed abounds in land and fresh-water shells of recent species of the genera Helix, Succinea, Cyclas, Pisidium, Valvata, Bithinia, and Planorbis, together with the marine Buccinum undatum, Cardium edule, Littorina rudis, Tellina solidula, and Purpura lapillus. With them have also been found the Cyrena consobrina, and numerous mammalian remains.
2 to 6 feet.
- 4. Light-coloured sandy marl, in places very hard, with Helix, Zonites, Succinea, and Pupa. Not traversed.
3 feet.
