THE CENTURY'S PROGRESS IN PALEONTOLOGY 



being thus prepared to receive new evidence, such evi- 

 dence was not long withheld. 



Indeed, at the moment of Darwin's writing a new 

 and very instructive chapter of the geologic record was 

 being presented to the public a chapter which for the 

 first time brought man into the story. In 1859 Dr. 

 Falconer, the distinguished British paleontologist, made 

 a visit to Abbeville, in the valley of the Somme, incited 

 by reports that for a decade before had been sent out 

 from there by M. Boucher des Perthes. These reports 

 had to do with the alleged finding of flint implements, 

 clearly the work of man, in undisturbed gravel beds, in 

 the midst of fossil remains of the mammoth and other 

 extinct animals. Dr. Falconer was so much impressed 

 with what he saw that he urged his countrymen Pro- 

 fessor Prestwich to go to Abbeville and thoroughly in- 

 vestigate the subject. Professor Prestwich complied, 

 with the collaboration of Mr. John Evans, and the re- 

 port which these paleontologists made of their investi- 

 gation brought the subject of the very significant human 

 fossils at Abbeville prominently before the public; 

 whereas the publications of the original discoverer, 

 Boucher des Perthes, bearing date of 1847, had been al- 

 together ignored. A new aspect was thus given to the 

 current controversy. 



As Dr. Falconer remarked, geology was now passing 

 through the same ordeal that astronomy passed in the 

 age of Galileo. But the times were changed since the 

 day when the author of the Dialogues was humbled be- 

 fore the Congregation of the Index, and now no Index 



109 



