1868. ] Archeology and Ethnology. 553 
be found either on Therasia or Santorin. The antiquity of this 
“Stone age” M. Fouqué illustrates by showing that since the 
eruption of the Tuff the foundering of the bay took place, because 
the Tuff and the subjacent lavas are similarly scarped. In certain 
localities the Tuff is overlain by a bed of rolled pebbles containing 
marine shells, showing that these points have been submerged since 
its eruption. Now, previous to all these events M. Fouqué believes 
that the stone walls of Therasia were built, and that the inhabitants 
imported their obsidian implements, pottery, &c.; and he explains 
the discovery of similar objects in tombs belonging to a date sub- 
sequent to these occurrences by suggesting that the trade, which 
was interrupted by the eruptions and the foundering of the bay, 
was subsequently renewed when the islands were re-peopled. The 
foundering of the bay is the most recent event with which we have 
to deal; and M. Fouqué considers that it must have occurred not 
later than the fifteenth century before Christ. 
This is a wonderful history, and, if confirmed, it will overturn 
our previous ideas of the “Stone age;” but although M. Fouqué 
states that the Tuffis not remanié, he does not advance one single 
fact in support of his statement ; and when we consider the difficulty 
of proving it in such a region, and the discovery of similar pottery 
and obsidian implements in tombs more recent than the Tuff, we 
feel inclined to believe that the Stone Houses of Therasia have been 
buried by a land-slip, and are equally more recent than the date 
which M. Fouqué assigns to them. 
The ‘Rapport sur les découvertes géologiques et archéologiques 
faites a Spiennes en 1867,’ by Messrs. A. Briart, F. Cornet, and 
A. Houzeau de Lehaie, has precisely the opposite tendency to 
M. Fouqué’s report just noticed, as it seems to show that the Stone 
age continued to a period subsequent to the last modifications of 
the surface in Belgium. It appears that near Spiennes there 
occur two horizons which have yielded flmt implements. The 
older of these is a Quaternary gravel resting upon Kocene sands, 
and yielding remains of the Mammoth, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, 
Ursus speleus, Felis spelea, and other extinct animals ; about its 
age there is no question whatever. Above this is a freshwater 
deposit locally termed Ergeron, the lower portion of which has 
yielded bones.of the Mammoth and of Rhinoceros tichorhinus, with 
a fragment of a shell of Unio pictorwm ; and in its upper portion 
shells of terrestrial and freshwater mollusca belonging to existing 
species. Above this bed, and covering it and all the other formations 
of the district like a vast mantle, is the Brick-earth, on the surface 
of which, at Spiennes, have been found flint implements, pottery, 
bone tools, &c., which the late M. Tolliez originally referred to the 
position now assigned to them by the authors of this report. M. 
Tolliez’s opinion had been contravened by M. Malaise, who regarded 
