192 Jfaj S*rm0its, (Essays, anir gtbbtos. [ix. 



chalk sea existed during an extremely long period, though 

 we may not be prepared to give a precise estimate of the 

 length of that period in years. The relative duration is 

 clear, though the absolute duration may not be definable. 

 The attempt to affix any precise date to the period at 

 which the chalk sea began, or ended, its existence, is 

 baffled by difficulties of the same kind. But the rela- 

 tive age of the cretaceous epoch may be determined 

 with as great ease and certainty as the long duration 

 of that epoch. 



You will have heard of the interesting discoveries 

 recently made, in various parts of Western Europe, of 

 flint implements, obviously worked into shape by human 

 hands, under circumstances which show conclusively that 

 man is a very ancient denizen of these regions. 



It has been proved that the old populations of Europe, 

 whose existence has been revealed to us in this way, con- 

 sisted of savages, such as the Esquimaux are now ; that, 

 in the country which is now France, they hunted the 

 reindeer, and were familiar with the ways of the mam- 

 moth and the bison. The physical geography of France 

 was in those days different from what it is now the 

 river Somme, for instance, having cut its bed a hundred 

 feet deeper between that time and this ; and, it is pro- 

 bable, that the climate was more like that of Canada 

 or Siberia, than that of Western Europe. 



The existence of these people is forgotten even in the 

 traditions of the oldest historical nations. The name 

 and fame of them had utterly vanished until a few 

 years back ; and the amount of physical change which 

 has been effected since their day, renders it more than 

 probable that, venerable as are some of the historical 

 nations, the workers of the chipped flints of Hoxne or 

 of Amiens are to them, as they are to us, in point of 

 antiquity. 



