46 [March 27, 



for making holes in the ice. These implements are also in daily use 

 for keeping open the water-holes. Analogous facts are quoted from 

 Wrangel respecting Siberia. The author suggests therefore that 

 some of the mysterious flint-implements (such as fig. 5, pi. 12, Phil. 

 Trans. 1860) of St. Acheul may have been used as ice-chisels. Rea- 

 sons are then assigned for their presence chiefly at particular spots ; 

 and reference is made to other forms of flint-implements, all of which 

 admit of explanation, except those of a flat ovoid shape, common at 

 Abbeville, which are unlike any instrument in use amongst any exist- 

 ing uncivilized tribes. 



Notwithstanding the probable severity of the climate, it was one by 

 no means unsuited to the existence of man, whilst the character of 

 the contemporaneous animal life of the period was perfectly fitted for 

 his support and sustenance. 



A difficulty has been raised because hitherto no human bones 

 have been found in these gravels ; but when it is considered how 

 scanty is the population in northern latitudes, and how dispropor- 

 tionately numerous are the great herds of Deer, Oxen, and other 

 animals (fossil remains of which are yet comparatively rare), this 

 fact, taken in conjunction with the foresight of man, indicates 

 how small are the chances of finding his remains. Nevertheless 

 in other deposits probably of the age of these gravels, such as 

 some of the caves near Liege described by Schmerling, the scattered 

 bones of man have been found in association with a like mammalian 

 fauna. 



The Low-level Gravels. Connected with this subject is the exca- 

 vation of the valleys, and the duration of that operation. The 

 author mentions how he hesitated to assign at first a much higher 

 antiquity to the higher gravels than to the lower gravels, or rather, 

 admitting a difference of age, to decide whether the excavation of the 

 valleys might not have been effected by some more powerful agency 

 acting through a short interval of time, and by so much contracting 

 the period by which the St. Acheul deposit preceded that of St. 

 Roch ; but after repeated visits to Amiens, and looking at the ques- 

 tion from every point of view, he finds himself unable to discover a 

 sufficient explanation in the direction first sought, and obliged to 

 adopt, in part, views differing materially in some points from those 

 he at first thought to be the more probable. The low-level gravels 



