﻿408 Canadian Record of Science. 



and woolly-haired rhinoceros, was first virtually estab- 

 lished. It was at the same time pointed out that these 

 relics belonged to a far earlier date than the ordinary 

 stone weapons found upon the surface, which usually 

 showed signs of grinding or polishing, and that in fact 

 there were two Stone Ages in Britain. To these the 

 terms Neolithic and Pahieolithic were subsequently 

 applied by Sir John Lubbock. 



The excitement was not less when, -at the meeting 

 of this Association at Aberdeen in the autumn of that 

 year, Sir Charles Lyell, in the presence of the Prince 

 Consort, called attention to the discoveries in the valley 

 of the Somme, the site of which he had himself visited, 

 and to the vast lapse of time indicated by the position of 

 the implements in drift-deposits a hundred feet above the 

 existing river. 



The conclusions forced upon those who examined the 

 facts on the spot did not receive immediate acceptance by 

 all who were interested in Geology and Archa3ology, and 

 fierce were the controversies on the subject that were 

 carried on both in the newspapers and before various 

 learned societies. 



It is at the same time instructive and amusing to look 

 back on the discussions of those days. While one class of 

 objectors accounted for the configuration of the flint 

 implements from the gravels by some unknown chemical 

 agency, by the violent and continued gyratory action 

 of water, by fracture resulting from pressure, by rapid 

 cooling when hot or by rapid heating when cold, or even 

 regarded them as aberrant forms of fossil fishes, there 

 were others who, when compelled to acknowledge that the 

 implements were the work of men's hands, attempted 

 to impugn and set aside the evidence as to the circum- 

 stances under which they had been discovered. In doing 

 this they adopted the view that the worked flints had 

 either been introduced into the containinof beds at a 



