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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



And it must be confessed that not a little force was added to 

 the opposition by certain characteristics of Boucher de Perthes 

 himself ; gifted, f oresighted, and vigorous as he was, he was his 

 own worst enemy ; carried away by his own discoveries, he jumped 

 to the most astounding conclusions : the engravings in the later 

 volume of his great work, showing what he thought to be human 



i hires and inscriptions upon some of the flint implements, are 

 worthy of a comic almanac ; and at the great National Museum 

 of Archseology at St. Germain, beneath the shelves bearing the 

 remains which he discovered, which mark the triumph of a great 

 new movement in human science, are drawers containing speci- 

 mens hardly worthy of a penny museum, from which he drew the 

 most unwarranted inferences as to the language, religion, and 

 usages of prehistoric man. 



But Boucher triumphed none the less. Among his bitter oppo- 

 nents at first was Dr. Rigollot, who in 1855, searching earnestly for 

 materials to refute the innovator, dug into the deposits of St. Acheul 

 — and was converted : for he found implements similar to those 

 of Abbeville, making still more certain the existence of man dur- 

 ing the Drift period. So, too, Gaudry a year later made similar 

 discoveries. 



But most important was the evidence of the truth which now 

 came from other parts of France and from many other countries. 

 The French leaders in geological science had been held back, not 

 only by awe of Cuvier, but by recollections of Scheuchzer. Ridi- 

 cule has always been a serious weapon in France, and the ridicule 

 which finally overtook the adherents of the attempt of Scheuchzer, 

 Mazurier, and others, to square geology with Genesis, was still re- 

 membered. From the great body of French scientists, therefore, 

 Boucher secured at first no aid. His support came from the other 

 side of the Channel. The most eminent English geologists, such as 

 Falconer, Prestwich, and Lyell, visited the beds at Abbeville and 

 St. Acheul, convinced themselves that the discoveries of Boucher, 

 Rigollot, and their colleagues were real, and then quietly but firmly 

 told England the truth. 



And now there appeared a most effective ally in France. The 

 arguments used against Boucher de Perthes and some of the other 

 early investigators of bone caves had been that the implements 

 found might have been washed about and turned over by great 

 floods, and therefore that they might be of a recent period ; but 

 in 1861 Edward Lartet published an account of his own excava- 

 tions at the Grotto of Aurignac, and the proof that man had ex- 

 isted in the time of the Quaternary animals was complete. This 

 grotto had been carefully sealed in prehistoric times by a stone at 

 its entrance ; no interference from disturbing currents of water 

 had been possible ; and Lartet found, in place, bones of eight out 



