474 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 16, 



In endeavouring to connect those proofs of the antiquity of the 

 human race with the geological and geographical changes which 

 have since taken place, I have not met with any more precise induc- 

 tion than that offered by M. d'Archiac, viz. the relative epoch of 

 the separation of England from the Continent. The former con- 

 nexion of the two is a fact generally admitted : it is proved by the 

 similarity in structure of the opposite sides of the Channel, by the 

 identity of species of terrestrial animals, the original intermigration 

 of which could only have been effected by the existence of terra 

 firma. M. d'Archiac (Bull, de la Soc. Geol. de France, ]>e serie, 

 t. x. p. 220, and Histoire des Progres, &c, t. ii. pp. 127 & 170) 

 has been led, by a series of well-weighed inductions from stratigra- 

 phical considerations, to consider the epoch of the separation of the 

 British Islands as occurring after the deposition of the diluvial rolled 

 pebbles, and before that of the ancient alluvium, the Loess of the 

 North of France, of Belgium, the Valley of the Rhine, &e. The in- 

 ference to be drawn from that hypothesis is self-evident : it is this, 

 that the primitive people to whom we attribute the hatchets and 

 other worked flints of Amiens and Abbeville might have communi- 

 cated with the existing land of England by dry land, inasmuch as 

 the separation did not take place until after the deposit of the rolled 

 diluvial pebbles, from among which the hatchets and worked flints 

 have been collected. On the other hand, M. Ehe de Beaumont 

 having assigned the production of the erratic phenomena existing in 

 our valleys to the last dislocation of the Alps, Ave should be author- 

 ized to conclude from this second hypothesis, that the worked flints 

 carried along with the pebbles in that erratic deposit in the bottom 

 of the valleys afford a proof of the existence of Man at an epoch when 

 Central Europe had not yet reached the completion of its present 

 great orographic relief. 



While it has been held that no change has taken place in the great 

 lines of level since the formation of the erratic deposits in the lower 

 parts of our valleys, and although such changes cannot be distinctly 

 traced in the central parts of the continents, from the absence of stand- 

 ards of comparison, they are not the less easy to be recognized as 

 having occurred, even since the existence of Man, throughout the 

 whole extent of the European coasts, from the Gulf of Bothnia to the 

 very eastern extremity of the Mediterranean. They have been ob- 

 served by different authors on a considerable number of points of the 

 coast, where they have verified the existence of objects of human 

 industry in deposits of marine origin, raised up at different elevations 

 above the sea-level. Such changes, be they the result of action more 

 or less violent, of movements more or less sudden, have not amounted 

 to catastrophes so general as to affect to a sensible degree the regular 

 succession of organized beings. 



We find incontestable proof of this in the British Islands, whither 

 the most considerable number of terrestrial species must necessarily 

 have immigrated prior to the separation of those islands from the 

 Continent, and where they have established themselves and have 

 continued by successive generations to the present day. The same 



