36 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



question the conclusions to which they all seem to point, namely: 

 that though the remains of man are found in a very recent geologi- 

 cal period, yet, in a historical point of view, the antiquity of these 

 remains is much greater than was formerly supposed. Those which 

 belong to the palasolithic age are usually found in beds of gravel 

 and loam, extending along river valleys and reaching a height some- 

 times of 200 feet above the present water level. That these beds 

 were not deposited by the sea is proved by the fact that the 

 remains which occur in them are those of fresh water, and not of 

 marine animals. These deposits contain fragments of such rocks only 

 as occur in the area drained by the river itself, and consequently 

 at the time the deposit was formed the topography of western 

 Europe could not have been very different from what it is at present. 

 That the climate, however, was much more severe than it is now 

 is shown by the character of the animals of which the bones are 

 found in abundance, namely: the musk-ox, the woolly-haired rhi- 

 noceros, the lemming, and the reindeer — all arctic animals. The 

 great antiquit}'' of the period is inferred from several indications. 

 The extinction of the large animals must have been a work of time, 

 and neither in the earlier writings, nor in popular traditions, do 

 we find any indication of their presence. Again the beds of gravel 

 and loam, which in most cases are deposited in regular strata, would 

 require a long succession of seasons, since we see how little effect 

 is produced at the present time in the course of a number of years. 



In these deposits mingled with the regular strata are found stone 

 implements indicating the presence of reasoning beings previous to 

 the time at which the strata were deposited. According to Sir John 

 Lubbock, about 3,000 flint implements have been found in what he 

 denominates the pala)olithic age, in northern France and soutliern 

 England, but no traces of pottery, nor evidence of the use of metals, 

 nor even of polished stone implements, have yet been met with. 



The neolithic age commences with a knowledge of a higher degree 

 of art, at a period when polished axes, chisels, gouges, and other 

 implements of stone, as well as hand-made pottery, were extensively used 

 in western Europe. The objects peculiar to this period do not occur 

 in the river drift gravel as in the previous period, except some of the 

 simpler ones. The implements are remarkably numerous in Den- 

 mark and Sweden, while the palasolithic types are absolutely 

 unknown there. It has hence been inferred that these northern 

 countries were not inhabited by man during the earlier periods. The 

 Danish shell-mounds belong to this period, as well as those of our own 



