GOSSIP ON ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 89 



de Perthes, returned home, resolved to look for hhnself for flint 

 tools in the gravel pits near Amiens. There he immediately found 

 abundance of similar flint implements, precisely the same in their 

 make and geological position, some of them in gravel nearly on a 

 level with the Somme, others in similar deposits resting on chalk, 

 at a height of about ninety feet above the river. 



I need not multiply unconscious instances. These are remark- 

 able arrangements of strata. We have man resting on the chalk, 

 or nearly so, along with river and land shells of living species. 

 Then come remains of contemporary animals of species which still 

 exist. Then are found mollusca, of species not now living in 

 Northern Europe, and others of living species. Then the cave 

 hyenas, bears, and lions. Then the hippopotamus, rhinoceros; 

 elephas antiquus E. primigeniits, &c., — the last first and the first 

 last. Judging from the composition of the strata, which is a 

 mixture and mingling of all the formations from the lowest eocene 

 to the superficial sui-face accumulations, we certainly might expect 

 to find, here and there, a representative of each of the extinct 

 mammalia. The strange fact is, that they are in reversed order, 

 or in such a position as would imply that a reversion was going on 

 when they were deposited. But if this order of superposition is 

 relied upon as proof that man was coeval in time with all these 

 extinct animals, it ought to be held equally as proof that man 

 existed before them, seeing that his remains are often found, almost 

 as a rule, heneath them. While, therefore, it is not improbable that 

 some of the now extinct animals may have come down to his era, 

 we get a much more intelligent glimpse of his true position and 

 time in creation, by finding his remains more intimately associated 

 with species which now exist, which must have been contemporary 

 with him, although created before him. 



The geological record may, however, be read in another way — 

 by placing man at the head of the creations of the Tertiary period 

 instead of at its foot; and then following down from the recent to 

 the eocene, we shall have the received order of superposition so far 

 as the strata of the embraced periods are concerned. Man would 

 then be found in his proper place, the associate of all existing 

 species, and probably of some of the extinctions, and with all living 

 species of land and marine mollusca, and would not be found in 

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