116 



DISCOVERY 



en. 



tens of thousands of years ago could not then be decided, 

 but in any case the period was long anterior to that 

 in which man was supposed to have been created. 



The importance of these discoveries was readily 

 recognised by geologists ; but such revolutionary views 

 as to the remote antiquity of man naturally met with 

 much opposition from the guardians of traditional 

 teaching. Prestwich was a devout Churchman, and he 

 cautiously abstained from making any pronouncement 

 upon the necessity of extending current chronological 

 ideas as to the existence of man, but he could not be 

 false to the facts before him, and the truths which they 

 revealed have since been placed beyond criticism. 

 Geologists have now no hesitation in stating that it 

 must have been at least ten thousand years ago since 

 man the hunter made the flint implements found mingled 

 with the remains of various animals in the valley- 

 gravels of Abbeville and elsewhere. 



It is to Prestwich more than to any qther geologist that wo 

 owe the establishment of the fact that man co-existed with a 

 number of now long extinct mammals, and that his advent on 

 the earth must be relegated to a far higher antiquity than that 

 which had previously been accepted. Sir Archibald Geikie. 



We have described these observations and conclusions 

 somewhat fully because of the excellent example they 

 afford of the difference between belief and evidence. 

 No one now supposes that only a few thousand years 

 have elapsed since man made his appearance upon the 

 earth, yet that was the belief until accurate observation, 

 cautiously interpreted, proved it to be untenable. It is 

 not surprising that facts which led to such revolutionary 

 ideas as to man's antiquity should have had almost 

 to force their way to attention. Until scientific obser- 

 vation had provided incontrovertible evidence of the 



