COMPARATIVE ARCH-EOLOGY. 159 
Frenchman’s theory, that the flint objects were really the 
handicraft work of man. This opinion, coming from such an 
experienced paleontologist, at once attracted the attention of 
English archeologists, many of whom forthwith visited the 
scene of these discoveries. It then transpired that as early 
as 1797 a discovery was made at Holne, in Suffolk, of bones 
and flint implements precisely analogous to those of the 
Somme valley. Not only so, but a detailed account of this 
discovery had been given by Sir John Frere, F.R.S., at the 
Society of Antiquaries of London. Some of the flint objects, 
described in the paper as weapons, were presented to the 
British Museum, where they lay ever since before the eyes of 
successive generations of learned archeologists as meaning- 
less curiosities. Nor was this a solitary instance of similar 
discoveries in Britain. About a century earlier than the Holne 
find (1690), a flint implement and an elephant’s tooth had been 
disinterred from ancient gravels in Gray’s Inn Lane, London. 
But the flint implement was not recognised as the work of 
man till Sir W. Franks pointed out its identity with the 
Somme specimens. 
The remarkable discoveries made by the Rev. Mr 
_M‘Enery in Kent’s Cavern, in the early part of last century, 
were absolutely ignored by scientists of the day. This most 
conscientious explorer of the cavern asserted that he found 
flint implements, associated with bones and teeth of extinct 
animals, below~a thick continuous sheet of stalagmite. 
Papers embodying the results of his investigations were read 
at a meeting of the British Association in 1847, but, according 
to Mr Pengally, the inconvenient conclusions arrived at 
“‘ were given to an apathetic, unbelieving world.’’ Subse- 
quently, however, en revanche, the complete exploration of the 
cavern was carried out under the auspices of that Association 
(1865-1880) at a cost of £1963. Veritas nunquam perit. 
Continental discoveries did not fare better. Dr Schmer- 
ling, the indefatigable explorer of Belgian caverns, published 
an account of his discoveries in two volumes, with an atlas of 
74 plates, in which he advocated the contemporaneity of man 
with the extinct animals (1533-34); but, in face of Cuvier’s 
expressed contempt for cavern researches, his convincing 
