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Updated: May 19, 2025
The contrast of the fauna of the ancient alluvium, whether at high or low levels, with the fauna of the oldest peat is almost as great as its contrast with the existing fauna, the memorials of Man being common to the whole series; hence we may infer that the interval of time which separated the era of the large extinct mammalia from that of the earliest peat, was of far longer duration than that of the entire growth of the peat.
As we ascended the valley, the vegetation, with the exception of a few pretty alpine flowers, became exceedingly scanty, and of quadrupeds, birds, or insects, scarcely one could be seen. The lofty mountains, their summits marked with a few patches of snow, stood well separated from each other, the valleys being filled up with an immense thickness of stratified alluvium.
Out of this book alluvium a hole seemed to have been dug near the fireplace, just big enough to hold his arm-chair and a table, book-strewn like everything else, and garnished with odds and ends of MSS., and a snuffer-tray containing scraps of half-smoked tobacco, "pipe-dottles," as he called them, which were carefully resmoked over and over again, till nothing but ash was left.
The rocks are still hornblende-schist and granite, with a covering of alluvium, full of quartz pebbles. I remained two days with Lieutenant Beadle, enjoying in his society several excursions to the hot springs, etc.
The coal crops out at the surface; but the shafts worked are sunk through thick beds of alluvium. The age of these coal-fields is quite unknown, and I regret to say that my examination of their fossil plants throws no material light on the subject. Upwards of thirty species of fossil plants have been procured from them, and of these the majority are referred by Dr.
From this source have been derived not only the regular-formed egg-shaped pebbles, so common in the old fluviatile alluvium at all levels, but those huge masses of hard sandstone, several feet in diameter, to which I shall allude in the sequel. The average width of the valley of the Somme between Amiens and Abbeville is one mile.
In almost all parts of the island, the land adjoining the coast is a low-lying swampy belt consisting of the alluvium brought down by the many rivers from the central highlands. This belt of alluvium extends inland in many parts for fifty miles or more, and is especially extensive in the south and south-east of the island.
Dates, the principal support of the inhabitants of Chaldaea, or Babylonia, both in ancient and in modern times, were no doubt also an article of food in Assyria, though scarcely to any great extent. The date-palm does not bear well above the alluvium, and such fruit as it produces in the upper country is very little esteemed.
Where, however, the alluvium is deeper, a considerable amount of labour must be expended before gold can be won. In countries blessed with abundant rainfall the nuggets can be separated from the dirt by a comparatively simple arrangement of sluices and cradles. In the drought-stricken west of Australia other means must be adopted, which I will endeavour to describe.
Acheul, in the suburbs of Amiens, where the old alluvium lies at an elevation of about 100 feet above the level of the river Somme. At both levels fluviatile and land-shells are met with in the loam as well as in the gravel, but there are no marine shells associated, except at Abbeville, in the lowest part of the gravel, near the sea, and a few feet only above the present high-water mark.
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