340 Sir H. H. Eoicorth—The Earliest Traces of Man. 



characters," and lie urges that the existence of actually fossil human 

 remains must be treated as a question in suspense. Inasmuch, 

 however, as Tournal tells us that with the human bones were found 

 pottery and modern marine shells, it would seem that the remains 

 must in part, if not altogether, have belonged to so-called Neolithic 

 times. (See Annales des Sciences, vol. xv, pp. 348-350.) 



In 1829 M. Tournal communicated to this publication further 

 remarks on the same subject. In this letter he refers to the 

 researches of M. Christol, and says they were both agreed that 

 the existence of man was not separated from that of the extinct 

 animals, but they had been contemporaries. He says that M. Christol 

 had shown him the human bones which he had found in the 

 department of the Gard, i.e. in the caves of Sauvignargues, 

 Poudres, etc., and that it was impossible to distinguish their 

 condition from that of the bones of tigers, lions, and hyeenas found 

 with them. Their physical and chemical condition was the same, 

 and they were found in the same beds ; while in regard to the 

 bones of some of the extinct animals he had himself found in the 

 caverns of Bize, they bore the character of having been cut by human 

 weapons. (Id,, vol. xviii, pp. 142 seq.) 



These remarks fell upon deaf ears, and the long and dreary process 

 of sapping and undermining the prejudices of the dominant school 

 of geologists had to be pressed for many a long year before the 

 position was stormed. The two most effective workers in this field 

 both died without their conclusions being accepted. One of them, 

 who spent his life and his fortune in exploring the caves of Belgium 

 and died broken-hearted, was Schmerling. The other, a Roman 

 Catholic clergyman called McEnery, did corresponding work at 

 Kents Hole. In each case the explorer claimed to have shown 

 from evidence that was irreproachable that man had lived con- 

 temporaneously with the extinct beasts, and had left his remains 

 mingled with theirs in the red earth beneath the stalagmite floors of 

 the caverns. 



It must not be forgotten that the person who persistently in 

 England refused to accept the conclusion of the contemporaneity of 

 man and the extinct beasts, and who caused McEnery's now famous 

 memoir to be locked up at the Eoyal Society for years after his 

 death, was Huxley, while Owen's views on the matter were much 

 more enlightened. 



Meanwhile, M. Boucher de Perthes, an antiquary at Abbeville, 

 became convinced, after years of patient search, that implements of 

 human workmanship occurred in the undisturbed gravels of the 

 Somme Valley, and must date from the time when those gravels 

 were deposited. He had preached for years in vain, when fortunately 

 a great English palseontologist, the late Dr. Falconer, passed that 

 way and was persuaded by the evidence he saw that M. Boucher de 

 Perthes was right, and he eventually persuaded Professor Prestwich, 

 Sir John Evans, and Sir John Lubbock to visit Abbeville and 

 Amiens and to explore and report upon the facts. The result of 

 their labours was embodied in a famous memoir in the Philosophical 



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