192 Flint Drift and Human Remains, 



tion. The mere fact of sucli association may not absolutely prove 

 the point, because it is conceivable that the bones may have been 

 merely re-aggregated from an older fossiliferous deposit. But I 

 suspect that the reluctance to admit the contemporaneity of man 

 with those animals results from the reluctance to admit man's 

 priority to such physical changes as are supposed to separate us 

 from a Fauna typified by the Mammoth and the Elk. If, there- 

 fore, the fact of such priority be proved from the stratigraphical 

 position of the flint relics, wholly independent of any argument 

 derived from organic remains, the importance of the question re- 

 specting the human age of the great mammals will be much di- 

 minished. It may be well, therefore, to keep our attention firmly 

 fixed on what is really the important question — the nature and 

 position of the strata in which, and under which, the flint imple- 

 ments have been interred. Going no farther for light upon this 

 question than the particular beds at Amiens and Abbeville in 

 France, where the implements have been found in greatest abun- 

 dance, it is enough to record the fact. The flints are embedded 

 in a stratum of gravel, which rests directly on an eroded surface 

 of the chalk, and contains along with the hatchets, the bones of 

 the great extinct mammalia. This is again surrounded by a bed 

 of sand from seven to ten feet thick, in which only a few rare 

 bones and implements have been found. This is again capped by 

 a second bed of gravel from tw^o to five feet thick; and lastly, on 

 the top of all, is a bed of brick earth, in which, as if to afibrd the 

 very poetry of illustration, are to be seen the tombs of Roman- 

 Gaul. Such is the position of the beds with reference to each 

 other. But what is their position with reference, not to each 

 other, but to the surrounding country ? The gravel-bed extends 

 to points upwards of a hundred feet above the level of the river 

 Somme, which occupies the bottom of the existing valley. It is 

 described by Professor Rogers, a most competent and accurate 

 observe^, as extending to the summits of the plateaux which de- 

 termine the existing drainage. Whether, therefore, the water 

 which, formed these beds were marine or fluviatile, in either case 

 such changes of level are implied as would be sufficient, if general, 

 to alter widely the existing distribution of land and sea. 



Here, then, the question arises, Were those changes local — con- 

 fined perhaps to the district of Western France ? Connected with 

 this question, another immediately occurs: Is not this bed of gra- 

 vel identical in character and compositson with similar deposits 



