G12 THE UNIVERSE. 



antiquity of the human race, notwithstanding which, for 

 some inexplicable reason, certain geologists make every 

 effort to nullify this great discoveiy. 



From time to time vestiges of our species had been 

 found among the d(^bris of animals which had become 

 extinct in the latest revolutions of our globe. 



On the other hand, a learned archteologist, M. Boucher 

 de Perthes, supported by the most laudable perseverance, 

 succeeded in collecting a tolerably large number of flint 

 instruments, which had clearly belonged to pre-historic 

 races of men destroyed in the great diluvian catastrophe. 



There was no longer any doubt in the mind of the illus- 

 trious Lyell. These implements shaped out of flint — axes, 

 arrow-heads, and knives — which are found in the drift, were 

 the work of a race which preceded ours — a race which 

 was contemporary Avitli the cave bears and hyenas, and 

 even with the rhinoceroses and elephants, which formerly 

 inhabited our soil, and of which we find only the fossilized 

 remains.^ 



The discoveries, then, of geologists and archaeologists 



• M. Boucher de Perthes has just made a discovery as fortunate as it was un- 

 expected, which confirms his former views. He has at last found in the drift 

 gravel, in the neighbourhood of Abbeville, human remains mixed with flint imple- 

 ments. These precious remains consisted of a human tooth and jaw, and were 

 found at a depth of 4 metres 53 centimetres (neaidy 1.5 feet). The concurrence 

 of opinion among the English and French naturalists who examined these 

 relics le.aves no room for doubt: they belong to a race of men anterior to the 

 deluge. 



In a note read lately before the Academy of Sciences, M. de Vibraye states 

 that he considers himself in a position to affirm, that up to the lower drift man 

 lived in association with the Crsvs spelanis, liycena spelcea, Cervus megaceros^ 

 IVdnoceros tickorhinus, and Elephas primigenius. — De Vibraye, Flint Findings 

 in the Drift. Compt. Rend., p. 577. 



One of our most distinguished archi^ologists, M. -J. M. Thaurin, has, in con- 

 cert with my son, Georges Pouchet, discovered some elephant bones and the tusk 

 of one of these animals in the diluvium near Eouen. But they did not succeed in 

 finding any traces of the work of man. — See J. M. Thaurin, Petrifications Ante- 



