THE FIRST TRACES OF MAN IN EUROPE. 673 



and in the pile-dwellings of our lakes and peat-beds we have relics of 

 the Stone and Bronze eras, the beginnings of which lie beyond the reach 

 of even tradition. 



Nor is the limit yet attained. Thanks to the discoveries of the 

 past few decades, we trace the existence of man back to a point ante- 

 dating our earliest history by we know not how many centuries. Of 

 this time, only a few bones and rudely-wrought stones are left as the 

 witnesses dumb, yet eloquent, and fulfilling in their way the saying, 

 " If men hold their peace, the very stones will cry out." 



The question was long since raised, whether traces of human exist- 

 ence had been, or were to be, found in the sand and gravel of the Post- 

 Tertiary or Diluvial period, which immediately preceded the present. 

 Some affirmed the finding of such remains in these, and the contempo- 

 raneous deposits of certain caves, while most geologists rejected such 

 statements as erroneous, or, at best, unauthenticated, plausibly urging 

 that ancient animal and recent human remains might easily have be- 

 come intermingled. And such researches were discredited and dis- 

 couraged by Cuvier's magisterial dictum, that man did not exist in 

 the Diluvial period, and that it was, therefore, vain to look for evi- 

 dences of his existence. 



Some twenty years ago, however, M. Boucher de Perthes discov- 

 ered a quantity of rude stone implements in the diluvial gravel-beds 

 of Abbeville, in the valley of the Somme, in intimate connection with 

 bones of mammoths. This discovery attracting much attention, in 

 1858 the French Academy of Sciences sent to the spot a committee of 

 investigation, composed, be it not forgotten, of men utterly skeptical 

 as to the fact at issue. This committee, strengthened by the accession 

 of several English geologists, worked long and carefully at its task, 

 and the Academy's discussions upon its reports were earnest and thor- 

 ough ; yet, the result was the complete confirmation of De Perthe's 

 reputed discoveries, and of the conclusions he had drawn therefrom. 

 Cuvierwas confuted ; the existence of man in the Diluvial period was 

 established. Similar discoveries in the open country and caves of 

 Germany, Spain, Italy, England, Belgium, and especially France, fol- 

 lowed in rapid succession. 



We cannot mention, much less describe, all the localities in which 

 have been found the closely-conjoined remains of man and of animals, 

 confessedly belonging to the drift or Diluvial period. We shall dis- 

 cuss only a few of the many cases, of which we may safely affirm that 

 the often easy and common mingling of ancient with recent remains 

 could not have occurred. To do this the more intelligently, we shall 

 speak briefly first of the characteristics and deposits of the Diluvial and 

 later prehistoric periods, and then of the human remains therein found. 



The Drift or Diluvial Deposits. The bottom-lands of our new 

 valleys, of the Rhine, for example, chiefly consist of widely-extended 

 vol. vi. 43 



