GEOLOGY. 345 



there, as well as mammalian remains, but in diminished quantity, only two 

 of the weapons having been brought to light during the winter. Another 

 of these implements is in the British Museum, having been formerly in the 

 Kemp and Sloane Collections, and is recorded to have been found with an 

 elephant's tooth in Gray's Inn Lane. Similar implements are also reported 

 to have been found in the gravel near Peterborough. These accumulated 

 facts prove, almost beyond controversy, the simultaneous deposition of in- 

 struments worked by the hand of man with bones of the extinct mammalia 

 in the drift of the Postpliocene period. Whether the age of man's existence 

 upon the earth is to be carried back far beyond either Egyptian or Chinese 

 chronology, or that of the extinct elephant, rhinoceros and other animals 

 brought down nearer to the present time than has commonly been allowed, 

 must remain a matter for conjecture. This much appears nearly indis- 

 putable, that at a remote period, possibly before the separation of England 

 from the Continent, this portion of the globe was densely peopled by man; 

 that implements, the work of his hands, were caught up, together with the 

 bones of the extinct mammals, by the rush of water, through whose agency 

 the gravel beds were formed; that above this gravel, in comparatively tran- 

 quil fresh water, thick beds of sand and loam were deposited, full of the 

 delicate shells of fresh- water mollusca; and that where all this took place 

 now forms table-land on the summit of hills nearly two hundred feet above 

 the level of the sea, in a country whose level is now stationary, and the face 

 of which has remained unaltered during the whole period which history or 

 tradition embraces. In conclusion, Mr. Evans suggested a careful examina- 

 tion of all beds of drift in which elephant remains had been found, with a 

 view of ascertaining the coexistence with them of these flint implements, 

 and still further illustrating their history. Their rudeness, and the fact that 

 they had not been sought for by those who have investigated the drift, may 

 well account for their not having been more generally found." 



The authenticity of the so-called works of art, found in the drift by Mr. 

 Prestwich having been very strenuously called in question and denied by 

 various writers, Prof. A. C. Ramsay, in a communication to the London 

 Athenceum, under date of July 13th, thus reviews the whole subject. 



"With regard to the presence of works of art in the Upper Drift, the sub- 

 ject easily divides itself into two heads: First, are the objects discovered 

 genuine works of art? and, secondly, were they actually found in strata 

 deposited at a period contemporary with the organic remains with which 

 they are associated ? 



The first duty of all inquirers is to free their minds from all prepossessions 

 respecting the antiquity of the human race. On this point most geologists 

 may be charged with having heretofore had the strongest preconceived opin- 

 ions respecting the late date of the appearance of man on the world, in con- 

 firmation of which I may appeal to the writings of Buckland and many 

 others. They were, therefore, no more likely than other observers to adopt 

 in haste any hypothesis that might tend to prove his extreme antiquity. 

 They were, however, so far prepared for such a contingency, that their habits 

 of thought, might lead them to accept good evidence, when offered Avith 

 comparative facility, and their daily occupations give them some advantages 

 in dealing with the question. 



For more than twenty years, like others of my craft, 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 



