zgo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in a gravel-bed near Gray's Inn Lane, in London. The world in 

 general paid no heed to this ; if the attention of theologians was 

 called to it, they dismissed it summarily with a reference to the 

 Deluge of Noah ; but the specimen was labeled, the circumstances 

 regarding it were recorded, and both specimen and record care- 

 fully preserved. 



In 1723 Jussieu addressed the French Academy on The Origin 

 and Uses of Thunder-stones. He showed that recent travelers 

 from various parts of the world had brought a nunibei* of weapons 

 and other implements of stone to France, and that they were es- 

 sentially similar to what in Europe had been known as " thunder- 

 stones " : a year later this fact was clinched into the scientific 

 mind of France by the Jesuit Lafitau, who published a work 

 showing the similarity between the customs of aborigines then 

 existing in other lands and those of the early inhabitants of 

 Europe. So began, in these works of Jussieu and Lafitau, the 

 science of comparative ethnography. 



In 1730 Mahudel presented a paper to the French Academy of 

 Inscriptions on the so-called " thunder-stones," and also presented 

 a series of plates which showed that these were stone implements, 

 which must have been used at an early period in human history. 



In 1778 Buffon, in his Epoques de la Nature, intimated his 

 belief that " thunder- stones" were made by early races of men; 

 but he did not press this view, and the reason for his reserve was 

 obvious enough : he had already one quarrel with the theologians 

 on his hands, which had cost him dear — public retraction and 

 humiliation ; his declaration, therefore, attracted little notice. 



In the year 1800 another fact came into the minds of thinking 

 men in England. In that year John Frere presented to the Lon- 

 don Society of Antiquaries sundry flint implements found in the 

 clay-beds near Hoxne ; that they were of human make was certain, 

 and, in view of the undisturbed depths in which they were found, 

 the theory was suggested that the men who made them must have 

 lived at a very ancient geological epoch ; yet even this discovery 

 and theory passed like a troublesome dream, and soon seemed to 

 be forgotten. 



About twenty years later Dr. Buckland published a discussion 

 of the subject, in the light of various discoveries in the drift and 

 in caves. It received wide attention, but theology was hushed to 

 silence by his soothing concession that these striking relics of 

 human handiwork, associated with the remains of various extinct 

 animals, were proofs of the Deluge of Noah. 



In 1823 Boue*, of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, showed to 

 Cuvier sundry human bones found deep in the alluvial deposits 

 of the upper Rhine, and suggested that they were of an early geo- 

 logical period; this Cuvier virtually, if not explicitly, denied: 



