230 THE BOUXDARY-LINE BETWEEN GEOLOGY AND HISTORY. 



They are broader iu front, and the cliiu forms a sharper angle backward, 

 than in any of the jiresent European races. These skulls, therefore, 

 exhibit a prognathous form, which is only found in a low state of civ- 

 ilization. 



2. In 1849 M. Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville, in jSTortheastern France, 

 announced that he had found strata of sand and alluvium, in which skel- 

 etons of extinct species of animals occ-i'irred, together with human weap- 

 ons and tools of Hint and stag-horn. Soon alterward Dr. Eigollot, of 

 Amiens, made similar discoveries, and many excellent geologists, like 

 Prestwich, Lyell, &c., who visited these regions since, agree that the 

 human and animal remains found there are of the same date. Human 

 bones have not been found there. Of the animal remains it is sufficient 

 to mention the mammoth, the rhinoceros with divided nose, and the cave- 

 hyena ; the appearance of the reindeer is also of special interest. 



Sir Charles Lj'ell described these discoveries iu detail last fall in his 

 opening address as president of the British Association. According to 

 his statement the alluvium stratum has been explored to a distance of 

 fifteen English miles, and has already furnished over 1,000 flint utensils. 

 To explain such a numerous occurrence of these manufactures along 

 with animal skeletons without the presence of human bones, Lyell 

 instances a phenomenon observed by him on Saint Simon's Island, in 

 Georgia, ISTorth America. There the traces of an old Indian settlement 

 are visible in a stratum 5 feet thick and covering about ten acres, which 

 contains oyster-shells, arrow-heads, stone hatchets, and fragments of 

 Indian pottery. If now the Altamaha lliver were to wash away this 

 stratum from the island and deposit it again farther along its course or 

 at its mouth, we would have a deposit of numerous human manufactures, 

 but without human bones, just as at Abbeville. 



The occurrence of the reindeer along with human remains has re- 

 cently again been confirmed by Mr. Prestwich, who found a flint weapon 

 immediately under the horns of a reindeer in the cave of Brixham, En- 

 gland. This animal, as is well known, is very sensitive to milder tem- 

 peratures ; all attempts to acclimatize it in Northern Scotland have 

 failed. It therefore follows, not only that man was the contemporary of 

 the extinct large mammals of the flrst grou[), but also, from his simul- 

 taneous appearance with the reindeer, that he was a hunter iu Central 

 Europe already at the time when the climate was much severer than it 

 is now. 



If we compare these most ancient human remains yet discovered with 

 those of the palafittes, which may be counted as belonging to the age 

 of stone, we will perceive striking differences; first, the position of the 

 palafittes proves certainly that the water-level of the Swiss lakes has 

 not changed very considerably since their construction, and we may 

 therefore conclude that the glacier period was past at the time of their 

 construction. In some cases this can be fully proved. Among the 

 remains found in them neither the reindeer nor any of the animals of 



