228 AGE OF MAN PREGLACIAL. CHAP. xn. 



to the boulder clay, No. 4, pp. 213 and 224. The position of the 

 Hoxne flint implements corresponds with that of the Mundesley 

 beds, from A to D, p. 224, and the most likely stratum in which 

 to find hereafter flint tools is no doubt the gravel A of that 

 section which has all the appearance of an old river-bed. No 

 flint tools have yet been observed there, but had the old 

 alluvium of Amiens or Abbeville occurred in the Norfolk 

 cliffs instead of the Valley of the Somme, and had we de 

 pended on the waves of the sea instead of the labour of many 

 hundred workmen continued for twenty years, for exposing 

 the flint implements to view, we might have remained ignorant 

 to this day of the fossil relics brought to light by M. Boucher 

 de Perthes, and those who have followed up his researches. 



Neither need we despair of one day meeting with the signs 

 of man's existence in the forest bed No. 3, or in the overlying 

 strata 3', on the ground of any uncongeniality in the climate 

 or incongruity in the state of the animate creation with the 

 well-being of our species. For the present we must be con 

 tent to wait and consider that we have made no investigations 

 which entitle us to wonder that the bones or stone weapons 

 of the era of the Elephas meridionalis have failed to come 

 to light. If any such lie hid in those strata, and should here 

 after be revealed to us, they would carry back the antiquity 

 of man to a distance of time probably more than twice as 

 great as that which separates our era from that of the most 

 ancient of the tool-bearing gravels yet discovered in Picardy, 

 or elsewhere. But even then the reader will perceive that 

 the age of man, though preglacial, would be so modern in 

 the great geological calendar, as given at p. 7, that he would 

 scarcely date so far back as the commencement of the post- 

 pliocene period. 



