REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 



235 



authenticity of the jaw ; it was only 

 on the adjournment to the gravel- 

 pits at Abbeville, and after watching 

 the labourers from seven a.m. to 

 five p.m. dig into the rocks, and 

 disentomb a number of flints in 

 similar condition to those examined 

 at Paris, that this conclusion was 

 shaken, and if some of them did 

 somewhat hurriedly i-ush into print, 

 it was without that mature delibera- 

 tion, which afterwards caused them 

 to return to their first expressed 

 opinion. Probably, if, as Mr. Kome 

 suggests, our savans had used the 

 pick-axe with their own hands the 

 case would have been very different. 

 However, the British members of 

 the commission are now all agreed 

 that no reliance whatever is to be 

 placed upon the Abbeville jaw. 



With the second part of this pa- 

 per — the examination as to the age 

 of the Somme valley and others of the 

 quaternary deposits — we cannot al- 

 together agree. This perhaps may 

 not be of much importance, as 

 scientific opinion is yet divided on 

 this point. We are glad to find that 

 our author cannot accept M. Elie de 

 Beaumont's theory for the origin of 

 the upper and lowet gravels of the 

 Somme, and we think the reasons 

 he advances sufficient for not doing 

 so. He fully accepts Sir C. Lyell's 

 hypothesis of their formation, but 

 yet cannot allow them to be nearly 

 so ancient as Sir Charles would 



make them. In fact, though, posi- 

 tively stating that he has not any 

 " theological reasons for discarding 

 the new-born physical chronology as 

 competing with the sacred one," the 

 last few pages are clearly an attempt 

 to bring this new-horn chronology 

 into something like harmony with 

 the sacred one. And after he has 

 satisfied his own mind with his recon- 

 ciliation theory, as the question now 

 stands, he states that should geology 

 in future years assert man's place 

 in creation as pre-glacial instead of 

 only post-glacial, he would reconcile 

 the two chronologies by supposing 

 the existence prior to the " Historic 

 Adam" of a totally different race of 

 men, who had gradually disappeared 

 before the superior advantages of the 

 Adamic race. This we submit is a 

 far more glaring " assumption " than 

 any of those he so unsparingly heaps 

 on Sir Charles Lyell's shoulders. 



^^p0rts of ^tstuixm. 



Belfast Field Naturalists Club.^ 

 The sixth excursion of this Society, 

 and the concluding one of the sum- 

 mer session, was made on the 8th 

 of October, the locality chosen being 

 the limestone quarries of the Cave 

 Hill. The excursion was purely 

 geological in its object, differing in 

 this respect from the preceding ones 

 of the session, in which botanical 

 research principally occupied the 



