﻿412 Canadian Record of Science. 



of the flints are of purely natural and not artificial origin, 

 so that two questions arise : First, Were the fossil 

 remains associated with the worked flints or with those of 

 natural forms ? and second, Were they actually found in 

 the bed to which they have been assigned or did they 

 merely lie together on the surface ? 



Even the Pithecanthropus erect us of Dr. Eugene Dubois 

 from Java meets with some incredulous objectors from 

 both the physiological and the geological sides. From the 

 point of view of the latter the difficulty lies in determining 

 the exact age of what are apparently alluvial beds in the 

 bottom of a river valley. 



When we return to Palaeolithic man, it is satisfactory 

 to feel that we are treading on comparatively secure 

 ground, and that the discoveries of the last forty years in 

 Britain alone enable us to a great extent to reconstitute 

 his history. We may not know the exact geological 

 period when first he settled in the British area, but 

 we have good evidence that he occupied it at a time when 

 the configuration of the surface was entirely different 

 from what it is at present : when the river valleys had not 

 been cut down to anything like their existing depth, when 

 the fauna of the country was of a totally different 

 character from that of the present day, when the extension 

 of the southern part of the island seaward was in places 

 such that the land was continuous with that of the 

 continent, and when in all probability a far more rainy 

 climate prevailed. AVe have proofs of the occupation of 

 the country by man during the long lapse of time that was 

 necessary for the excavation of the river valleys. We 

 liave found the old floors on which his habitations were 

 fixed, we Imve been able to trace him at work on the 

 manufacture of flint instruments, and by building up the 

 one upon the other tlie flakes struck off by the primaeval 

 workman in those remote times we have been able to 

 reconstruct the blocks of flint whicli served as his material. 



