22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



direction of studies or in some of the branches of the biological 

 sciences. I purpose to supply only a few examples of them. I 

 recollect that in 1855, when I was a professor at Lille, Mr. Huxley 

 wrote to me that " we in England are all stirred up and much per- 

 plexed by the discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes." The refer- 

 ence is, of course, to the interest that was aroused about the cut 

 flints of Saint-Acheul and the famous jaw-bone of Moulin-Quignon. 

 English men of science and geologists came to Amiens, lively dis- 

 cussions took place, a committee of Frenchmen and foreigners was 

 formed and proceeded to the spot to make official investigations. 

 Some fraud and incredulity were mingled in the affair. A work- 

 man confessed to me, for a money consideration and a promise of 

 silence, that he had himself fabricated one of the two specimens 

 which I procured, and that it had not lain long enough in the bed 

 to acquire the patina of the other. The point I desire to emphasize 

 is, that the real thing that was discovered then, especially after the 

 visit of the British investigators, was the books, the researches, and 

 the new ideas of M. Boucher de Perthes, which had till then passed 

 unnoticed. The beginning of the prehistoric studies, which have 

 since attained so considerable development, may be dated from 

 this time. Since the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes at Saint- 

 Acheul, and those of Lartet and Christy in Pe'rigord, a part of the 

 history of man has been completely transformed ; and geology, so 

 far as concerns the most modern formations, has been subjected 

 to the salutary influence of the new knowledge. What has become 

 of the superannuated ideas that conceived fossil man impossible ? 

 What new problems, full of interest, have been presented since 

 the remains were found in Pe'rigord and other places of animals 

 that no longer live where their bones are lying ! How many in- 

 teresting questions have resulted from the simple discovery of a 

 reindeer-horn in a grotto of Eyzies ; and what a long road we 

 have gone over since then ! Is it strange that the number of 

 explorers has become great, and that liberal and often magnifi- 

 cent encouragement is given them ? It would be ungrateful in 

 this connection not to repeat the acknowledgment of our obliga- 

 tions to one of our members M. Girard, of Lyon who has be- 

 queathed to our Association one hundred and seventy-two thou- 

 sand francs to be applied exclusively to researches in prehistoric 

 anthropology ; the proceeds of which your committee is able to 

 use this year for the first time. 



The lively emotion produced by the discoveries of M. Boucher 

 de Perthes had begun to subside, and researches were going on 

 everywhere, when Darwin's first studies appeared in 1858 and 1859. 

 These dates must always be memorable in the history of natural 

 science, for they mark an epoch from which zoological studies 

 entered upon a new course. The learned world, we might say, 



