208 



NATURE 



\yuly II, 1S72 



we are led irresistibly to inquire when, and why, and how 

 did they come where we now see them, and why arc they 

 never found on the surface, nor under any other conditions ? 

 To a certain extent this inquiry is involved in the far 

 larger question of the forces by means of which the super- 

 ficial "ravels, of which the implements are as it were but 

 the accidents, became dispersed— a subject which does not 

 necessarily come within the scope of a work designed to 

 be technological rather than geological. Mr. Evans has, 

 however, very judiciously devoted one of his chapters to 

 it ; and as it is one of great interest, and is still involved 

 in much obscurity, we may gladly welcome any attempt 

 to deal with it, especially by one who has given so much 

 attention to its investigation. 



It was the opijiion of the late Dr. Buckland, an opinion 

 which was concurred in by Greenough, Conybeare, and 

 other able writers of their time, that the general dispersion 

 of gravel, sand, and loam, over hills and elevated plains, 

 as well as valleys, was the result of a universal deluge, 

 which is described as transient, simultaneous, and ot a 

 date not very remote ; that the existing system of valleys 

 was mainly due to the same cause, and that thus both 

 valleys and gravels preceded our present river systems. 

 Cuvier, and the French geologists generally, have held 

 the same opinion, but of late years it seems to have been 

 altogether discredited by English authors, with perhaps 

 the exception of the late Sir Roderick Murchison. We 

 may well entertain doubts as to the occurrence of a deluge 

 that should be both universal and simultaneous ; and it is 

 probable that it is chielly on that account that Dr. Buck- 

 land's theory has met with so little favour. Still, although 

 we may be unable to adopt his views in their entirety, his 

 statements as to the diluvial characters of the English 

 drifts seem entitled to some further consideration before 

 they are set aside altogether, and on this account it is 

 fortunate that the recent discoveries of flint implements 

 have excited so much interest in the gravels in question 

 as to induce Mr. Evans to devote no inconsiderable portion 

 of his work to the history and antiquity of the River drift. 

 In the last chapter he has adduced an elaborate argu- 

 ment in favour of the belief in fluviatile transport as 

 opposed to diluvial, by showing first hypothetically the 

 possibility that " deposits now occupying the summits of 

 hills have originally been formed in and about river beds," 

 and then, by reference to the actual phenomena, the prob- 

 ability that the implement-bearing beds were thus formed. 

 No one can doubt, upon the hypothesis here stated, that 

 rivers may have possessed at one time a far greater power 

 of excavating and deepening their channels than now ; 

 but then the author is obliged to assume the prevalence 

 of several conditions, and notably a far more rigorous 

 chmate, and a greater amount of rainfall ; conditions as to 

 which we have but little evidence, and some of that is of 

 a doubtful tendency. If, as is now supposed, the hippo- 

 potamus and elephant and rhinoceros remained here all 

 the winter, they would have fared but badly, had the 

 climate been as severe as is supposed. 



But passing by these topics as not bearing very imme- 

 diately upon the question of transport, it cannot be doubted 

 that submergence, by means of diluvial action, is quite 

 possible, since we have many instances of it within the his- 

 torical period, and some indeed within the last few years ; 

 and both modes of transport being alike possible, the pro- 

 babilities of the case have alone to be considered ; and, 

 notwithstanding the various reasons so ably stated by 

 Mr. Evans, it does not seem that there are sufficient 

 grounds for rejecting Dr. Buckland's theory, and there are 

 besides some inferences to be drawn from the position of 

 the implements which, so far as they are concerned, are 

 at variance with the theory of fluviatile transport. For 

 instance, when met with in valleys, it appears that the im- 

 plements are not found along the whole course of those 

 valleys, as well where flint gravels are wanting, as where 

 they abound, as would have been the case had they been 



carried down promiscuously by the streams from time to 

 time ; but, only in certain limited areas, and then usually 

 in large numbers, and at about the same levels ; and 

 further, that in several of these deposits the implements 

 are distinguished from those of neighbouring deposits by 

 some slight difference in form. From these indications 

 it may be inferred that they were made and left at or near 

 the spots on which they are found, and afterwards covered 

 up, and occasionally displaced, by the masses of drifted 

 material which now overlie them ; and this seems the 

 more probable, when it is seen that some of them were 

 formed from stones of the same kind as those composing 

 the beds in which they rest, and that some of these appear 

 to have lain exposed upon the surface for long periods 

 before tliey were worked. 



If, indeed, it had happened that these things had never 

 been found elsewhere than in river valleys, the conclusions 

 arrived at by JNIr. Evans would have been irresistible, but 

 so far from this being the case, it is certain that these im- 

 plement-bearing gravels are occasionally found on the 

 extreme margin of sea cliffs, or isolated hills on the verge 

 of far-stretching plains— situations to which no river flow- 

 ing in the same channels, and draining the same areas as 

 now, could ha\e carried them. 



Mr. Evans has noticed several of these deposits as met 

 with at Bournemouth, the Reculvers, and the Foreland 

 cliffs in the Isle of Wight (to these probably should be 

 added Southampton, and Brandon Down, and some 

 others) ; and he has also alluded to the remarkable dis- 

 covery in the Madras Presidency of implements of quartz- 

 ite of true drift type, found on the clift's at an elevation of 

 three hundred feet above the sea, in a bed of ferruginous 

 clay which forms the coast line for several hundred miles, 

 and is intersected at right angles at various intervals, by 

 the rivers of the country in making their way to the sea. 



In all these cases all traces of the ancient rivers, if in- 

 deed they ever existed, have been entirely effaced; neither 

 channels, nor outlets, nor adequate water-sheds, nor a 

 single land or river shell, remaining to testify of them ; 

 and not only so, but we find many deposits of quaternary 

 gravel (which Mr. Evans justly concludes to be of the 

 same geological period as those of the implements, and 

 to owe their existence and position to the same causes) 

 on hills which could not have been reached by modern 

 rivers. The whole country would have been a vast lake 

 before such heights could have been submerged ; and un- 

 der such circumstances it may be fairly assumed that the 

 same forces, whatever they were, that covered the hill-tops, 

 may have partially filled up the valleys ; the presence of 

 gravel may suggest, but cannot prove, that the river 

 brought it, however much it may have re-arranged and 

 sorted it ; both valley and gravel may have had an exist- 

 tence before the river began its course. We have many 

 valleys and gravels without rivers, and rivers without 

 gravels ; they can very well exist apart, and, doubtless, 

 have often done so. 



{To I'l iOiiliiiiicil.) 



THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM* 



ONE of the most interesting features in connection 

 with the annual election of Fellows into the Council 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons, is the exhibition of 

 additions about to be made to the Museum, and which 

 have accrued since the last meeting. Prof. Flower, the 

 Conservator, states in his Report that in the pathological 

 collection eighty-eight additions have been made, against 

 sixty-two during the past year, and that the microscopical 

 characters of all recent specimens sent to the College, and 

 thought worthy of preservation, had been carefully de- 

 scribed and delineated by Mr. Goodhart, the Pathological 



» Fron tlie Medical Times and Gazelle. 



