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E. Andrews on Human Antiquities at A bbeville, dc. 187 
5200 years down to the cessation of peat growth, or, adding 
the six or seven hundred years supposed to have elapsed since 
the clearing of the ground, the present age of the bed would 
be about 5800 years. It is impossible to pretend to minute 
accuracy in such calculations, but the above results are at least 
based on tangible data, and serve to show that in the eyes of 
practical woodsmen, the enormous European estimates of time 
greatly need pruning. 
During my sojourn on the Continent, I twice examined the 
gravel cones of the Tiniére, near Villeneuve, on Lake Geneva, 
which have been made familiar to geologists by the investigation 
of Morlot. Unfortunately I have not at hand his original ac- 
count, and am obliged to take his statements second hand, as 
quoted by Sir John Lubbock and others, 
At the eastern extremity of Lake Geneva, situated upon the 
level bottom of the valley of the Rhone, is the little city of 
Villeneuye. From the mountains which rise abruptly over the 
' very edge of the city, descends the torrent of the Tinicre, which 
is dry part of the year, but at other times becomes a stream 
some fifteen feet in breadth. This stream brings down annually 
@ certain quantity of torrent gravel which has been deposited 
in the form of a cone, or rather of a half cone upon the level 
plateau on the border of the lake. The apex of the cone rests 
against the side of the mountain, and the base extends ina 
semicircle around the mouth of the gorge from which the tor- 
rent descends, A railroad hasbeen cut through the cone, thus 
@g0 the increase of the cone was stopped by confining the course 
