3 8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



had been flaked by natural causes, and if not, then they had 

 been made by the workmen at the pits, who had surreptitiously 

 inserted them in the gravel from whence they were removed 

 by the enthusiastic but misled archaeologist. The various and 

 extraordinary arguments put forward against the human origin 

 of the palaeolithic implements discovered by Boucher de Perthes 

 are fortunately preserved and can be studied in a book entitled 

 The Antiquity of Man, consisting of papers selected chiefly from 

 the Transactions of The Victoria Institute (Elliot Stock, 62, 

 Paternoster Row, London, E.C.). 



There were, however, a few men who, having seen and 

 handled some of Boucher de Perthes' specimens, stated they 

 were in agreement with his opinion as to their human origin. 



But these opinions made little headway, and for many years 

 the majority of archaeologists held to the belief that the flints 

 found in the valley of the Somme had been flaked by some 

 unknown natural forces. 



Gradually, however, opinion began to change. Investiga- 

 tions carried out in river-gravels in this country and elsewhere 

 established the fact of the occurrence in these deposits of 

 similar flaked flints to those found by Boucher de Perthes, and 

 at length, after much searching of heart on the part of the 

 archaeological world, palaeolithic man came into his own. With 

 the general acceptance of the palaeoliths, a condition of com- 

 parative tranquillity once more descended upon the question 

 of man's antiquity ; and though there were some bold spirits 

 who held that an elaborately flaked palaeolithic implement 

 could not, in the nature of things, represent man's first effort 

 in the fashioning of flint, and that in consequence his earlier 

 efforts would probably be found in deposits more ancient than 

 the palaeolithic river-gravels, yet these were but " voices crying 

 in the wilderness," and little heed was paid to them. The 

 mutterings of the coming storm, which was to sweep away the 

 orthodox limits set to the antiquity of the human race, were 

 first heard from Ightham in Kent, where Mr. Benjamin Harrison, 

 having found palaeolithic implements in the oldest river-gravels 

 of his district, began to investigate still more ancient deposits 

 situated on the high plateau of Kent. These investigations 

 resulted in the discovery of a series of rough flints exhibiting 

 flaking along one or other of their edges. This discovery and 

 the announcement that several archaeologists, including the 



