GEOLOGY. 333 



doubts, and at last, under the suggestions of a philosophical scepticism, 

 the only right mood for analyzing the apparently contradictory evidence 

 before him, he asks himself the following questions : Are the flint-imple- 

 ments these imputed products of man's skill actually the work of 

 human hands? Again, though they and the mammalian bones, held to be 

 distinctive of the diluvium, do lie entombed together, does this demonstrate 

 that the once owners of each the men who left the flints, and the animals 

 who possessed the bones also lived together in the same epoch ? Admitting 

 that they were contemporary, how far does this fact of itself establish the 

 great antiquity of the human race? 



"And, lastly, apart altogether from the proofs of age, deduced from the 

 association of the human relics with the remains of the extinct quadrupeds, 

 what is the geological evidence of the extreme agedness of both in the 

 nature of the deposits of sand, gravel, and brick-earth placed above them, 

 and in the intimations these give us of the time occupied in their formation? 



" Such are the more prominent queries suggested by the phenomena, and 

 such, indeed, the actual questions asked every day of the scientific observer, 

 by intelligent readers of the still very fragmentary literature relating to this 

 new and strange archrcologic problem." 



In regard to the first question, Are the so-called flint implements really the 

 result of human workmanship? Professor Rogers states that there can be no 

 reasonable doubt up/on the subject; and that it is now admitted, by almost 

 every scientific man who has examined them, that they bear unmistakable 

 evidence of having been shaped artificially. 



In regard to the inquiry, Does the mere association in the same deposit of 

 the flint implements and the bones of extinct quadrupeds prove that the 

 artificers of the flint tools and the animals coexisted in time? Professor 

 Rogers answers: "That mere juxtaposition of itself is no evidence of con- 

 temporaneity ; and that, upon the testimony of the fossil bones, the age of 

 the human relics is not proven." 



" It is sometimes asked by persons uninitiated in geology, and who have 

 not examined the diluvium and superficial gravel, if the ' wrought flints' 

 may not belong to historic times, and have insinuated themselves downwards 

 from the soil into the stratum which now entombs them by mere force of 

 incessantly acting gravity, either through chinks in the over-resting deposits, 

 or between their fragments and particles. Preposterous as this question seems 

 to the geologist or to the practical excavator of the subsoil, it is so often and 

 so constantly advanced that it demands an answer; and our reply is, that a 

 few minutes' inspection of the beds containing and overlying the flint-imple- 

 ments of the Sommc will assure any observer that they are entirely destitute 

 of the imagined crevices, and are, moreover, altogether too compact and 

 immovable to admit of any such insinuation or percolation c-f surface objects. 

 The gravel is, indeed, so firm, that a live mole, with all his admirable appli- 

 ances for burrowing, could not possibly enter it; so firmly imbedded, that 

 the workmen use heavy iron picks to disintegrate the half-cemented mate- 

 rials." 



To the query, What is the antiquity of the mammalian bones with which 

 flint-implements are associated? Professor Rogers' answer is, "that, apart 

 from their mixture with the recently-discovered vestiges of an early race of 

 men, these fossils exhibit no independent marks by whuli we can relate 

 them to human time at all. Let us admit that the wrought flints arc truly 

 contemporary with the animals whose bones lie side by side with them, and 



