LUBBOCK ON TTTK ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 247 



i-esembling botli of the two princij^al types found at Abbeville and 

 A miens. 



Finally, Mr. Evans himself, near Abbots Langley in Hertford- 

 shire, has picked up on the surface of a field a weathered hatchet with 

 the top broken off, but otherwise identical in form A\'ith the spear- 

 head-shaped specimens from Amiens and Heme Bay. 



But why, it may be asked, should the history of this question be 

 so recounted? Why should it be treated differently from any 

 other scientific discovery ? The answer is not difficult. That the 

 statement by Mr. Frere has been forgotten for half a century ; that 

 the weapon found by Mr. Conyers should have lain unnoticed for 

 more than double that time ; that the discoveries by M. Boucher de 

 Perthes have been ignored for fifteen years ; that the numerous cases 

 in which caves have contained the remains of men together with those 

 of extinct animals, have been explained away ; are facts which show 

 how deeply rooted was the conviction that man belonged altogether 

 to a more recent order of things, and, whatever other accusation 

 may be brought against them, geologists can at least not be said to 

 have hastily accepted the theory of the coexistence of the human 

 race with the now extinct Pachydermata of Northern Europe. 



Though, however, the distinguished geologists to whom I have 

 referred, have all, with one exception, expressed themselves more or 

 less strongly as to the great antiquity of these curious weapons, still, 

 I do not wish that they should be received as judges ; I only claim 

 the right to summon them as witnesses. 



The questions to be decided may be stated as follows : — 



1st. Are the so-called flint implements of human workmanship, or 

 the results of physical agencies ? 



2ndly. Are the flint implements of the same age as the bones of 

 the extinct animals mth which they occur ? 



3rdly. Are we entitled to impute a high antiquity to the beds in 

 which these remains occur ? 



4thly. What are the conditions under which they were deposited ? 



To the first three of these questions an affirmative answer would 

 be given, almost unanimously, by those geologists who have given any 

 special attention to the subject. Fortunately, however, there is one 

 exception to this rule ; Blackwood's Magazine for October, 1860, con- 

 tains an article in which the last two questions are maintained to be 

 still unanswered, and in which therefore a verdict of " Not Proven" 

 is demanded. Not indeed that there is any difference of opinion as to 

 the weapons themselves. " For more than twenty years," says Prof. 

 Eamsay, " I have daily handled stones, whether fashioned by nature 

 •' or art, and the flint hatchets of Amiens and Abbeville seem to me as 

 " clearly works of art as any Sheffield whittle."* It will be better 

 however to quote from the candid sceptic in Blackwood. " They 

 bear," he admits (p. 438), " unmistakeably the indications of having 



* Atlicnajiim, July 16, 1859, 



