574 Correspondence— F. N. Hatvard. 



"Paris, Oct. 29, 1915. 

 " I ask this publication relying on my right of reply, since I deem it beneath 

 my dignity and scientific repute to reply directly to the poor and arbitrary 

 attack of Mr. Keid Moir against my scientific independence and experience. — 

 H. Beeuil." 

 49 Queen Victoeia Steeet, E.C. F - N - Ha-waed. 



November 2, 1915. 



[Copy.] 



" 110 Eue Demoues, Paeis. 



February 27, 1913. 



" Deae Me. Hawaed, — I am entirely of your opinion concerning the 

 so-called Pre-Pakeoliths (or 'Eoliths') of Mr. Eeid Moir and Sir Ray Lankester. 

 Your article 1 is very strong against them, but, as with all their ' Eolithic- 

 loving ' confreres, it is difficult to discuss with these gentlemen. They affirm 

 their opinions with too much enthusiastic conviction, which prevents them 

 from appreciating the rights of others to doubt. 



"The 'Eoliths' of the Pre-Crag bed of these gentlemen are really much 

 older than the deposit which contains them ; probably they came from the 

 remains of Miocene or very old Pliocene, or of beds of the sort you have 

 described. If they had been chipped by intelligent beings, it would not have 

 been during the Pliocene period, but at a period too early for the probable 

 geological antiquity of mankind, because it would be necessary equally to 

 admit not only Le Puy Courny (Miocene) but Boncelles, which is at least 

 Oligocene. Now at Boncelles M. Rutot has discovered at the side of his 

 so-called ' human station ' a spot yielding similar flints to those of Belle 

 Assise, but much finer, resulting evidently, even in his opinion, from movement 

 of the soil. 



"I have brought to these gentlemen the best flints from Belle Assise. 

 Mr. Reid Moir would not say that these were not made by Man. Sir Ray 

 Lankester was more prudent: he said 'that they were not due to pressure '. 

 I replied that in any case the fracture and the ' retouching ' were produced 

 after they were embedded in the Eocene sand. ' Sand like water produces 

 nothing by pressure,' so far as static pressure is concerned, but movement of 

 the soil, as you say so well, produces formidable compression. 



' ' There are some who believe that two or three laboratory experiments 

 are equivalent to the mechanism so complicated and so varied as is that of 

 Nature. There are experiments that one cannot reproduce in the laboratory, 

 and others which are not worth the trouble, or which would cost too much to 

 demonstrate an evident thing. And yet these gentlemen say that it has been 

 done by machinery, and that consequently this proves nothing (as in the case 

 of Mantes). 



"When one examines the geological formation of the 'Sub-Crag beds', 

 where one finds the so-called ' Rostro-Carinates ' and accompanying flints, it is 

 striking that in all the pits where they can be seen one always finds them 

 infallibly and abundantly. This fact is evidence that one is in the presence of 

 a geological and not an archceological phenomenon. Also, there are many 

 other flints in these beds besides those which have been presented as ' humanly 

 worked ' ; some show no fracture, others one or two or a few fractures without 

 signification, others are doubtful, although more elaborate in appearance, even 

 in the opinion of the enthusiasts. Others carry written on their facets and 

 edges the history of their long misadventures ; the ' patina ' of the facets proves 

 the repeated action by the mechanical forces which is convincing to unbiassed 

 minds well disposed to discuss dispassionately. 



" Probably there was a relation of ' cause and effect ' between the production 

 of scratches and the chipping of the edge of the opposite side. One would say 



1 "F. N. Haward, 'The Chipping of Flint by Natural Agencies': Proc. 

 Prehistoric Soc. E. Anglia (read December 4, 1911)." 



