THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 



213 



Kow, these polished flints (Figs. 2 and 3), Jiese stone hatchets (Figs. 4 

 and 5), were found in the earth associated with the bones of elephants ; 

 whence he concluded that the men who had fashioned them lived at 

 the same epoch with those great mammifers long since extinct. 



This conclusion, drawn by M. Boucher de Perthes, was at first vig 

 orously contested. In particular, some of the men whose decisions 

 have justly the highest authority on questions relating to the history 

 of the earth, thought that the chipped flints and the bones of elephants 



Fig. 4. 



Fig. 5 



Flint Hatchets. 



were found together in the same bed because this bed had been altered. 

 They said : A first bed was formed which enclosed the bones of ele- 

 phants. On this bed, during the present period, men lived and have 

 left these chipped flints as a trace of their presence. Then came a 

 mighty tempest, which rolled and confounded together the hatchets 

 and the elephants' bones. Hence we now find them side by side, 

 although the bed to which they belong contains the remains of two 

 perfectly distinct epochs. 



It will be apparent to you that, if, in our day, men were buried in 

 this bed of Menchecourt and of Moulin-Quignon, and, if a great storm 

 should come and mingle these modern bones with the hatchets and 

 bones of elephants, our grandchildren would find them all mixed 

 together, and yet the men of to-day are not contemporaneous with 

 the hatchets you see before you. 



The objection was all the stronger for having been advanced, as I 

 have said, by the highest authorities in Geology. This is why I attach 



