GEOLOGY. 320 



that from one locality several hundred arrow-heads and other implements 

 of stone could be sent over to the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries 

 here. A distinguished Danish naturalist, Dr. Lund, who for many 

 years has been residing in Brazil, mentions, in a letter to the said society, 

 that the borders of the small lake Lagoa Santa, at the time when the Euro- 

 peans first came to that part of Brazil, were all scattered over with hatchets 

 of stone, proving that this spot had been a favorite one for the aboriginal 

 inhabitants. 



To these observations I could add a great many similar from the sea- 

 coasts of the Continent, from larger and smaller Islands, as well as from the 

 borders of lakes in the north of Europe, where rude flint implements in great 

 abundance have been discovered. But I will only mention here, that ia 

 Denmark, in the island of Laaland, Mr. de Wichfeld and myself have been 

 fortunate enough lately to collect in the course of a few weeks, in one locality, 

 more than a thousand extremely rude flint implements, exactly like those 

 from our oyster-mounds, and very similar to those found in the gravel-pits 

 and bone-caves in France and England. They were lying spread partly at 

 the borders of the small lake of Maribo, partly on small islands or holms in 

 the lake, where some traces of pile-work (probably even older than that dis- 

 covered in the lakes of Switzerland), for the first time in this country, have 

 been found, and parti}- in the lake itself, in the very water near the borders. 

 The lake has a length of five or six English miles, and a breadth of one or 

 one and a half miles, and hitherto only one of the sides of the lake has been 

 searched. The number of flint implements discovered here in a few weeks 

 surpasses, comparatively, the quantity of similar implements found in ten 

 years in the valley of the Sommc. 



A most interesting circumstance with this same remarkable find in the 

 lake of Maribo is, that we have some reason to believe that the lake in the 

 aboriginal time, perhaps, may have had another niveau than now, as there 

 are to be seen in the lake- standing roots of fir-trees, which formerly must 

 have stood on dry, or at least on boggy ground. Several other circum- 

 stances from the same lake, and from different localities in Schonen and in 

 Jutland, where the rudest stone implements have been discovered, make it 

 very probable that our country, as well as England and France, must have 

 undergone considerable geological changes, at least in some parts, and at a 

 very remote time, when the poor savage aborigines wandered about on the 

 sea-coasts, and on the borders of lakes and rivers, with then- miserable imple- 

 ments of flint and bone. 



I offer these comparative remai'ks in the hope that they may throw some 

 light upon the great and important question of the day, the question about 

 the antiquity of the human race. I fully agree with Sir C. Lyell, "that the 

 evidence is very strong in favor of a very high antiquity," as there really is 

 no reason to doubt that true implements of flint, works of human art, fre- 

 quently have been found in the drift with bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, 

 and other extinct animals. I feel convinced that we are at the commence- 

 ment of some of the most remarkable discoveries which have been lately 

 made, and which certainly will have a great influence tipon the further 

 rapid progress of national archaeology on the whole, and also upon its 

 emancipation from old_ and new prejudices, and from so-called historical 

 theories. 



First Inhabitants of Switzerland. Curious discoveries have recently been 

 made of various stone instruments and other relics of an ancient and un- 



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