4 PREHISTORIC E UR OPE. 



English geologists, who were enabled to confirm to the fullest 

 extent Boncher de Perthes' observations. 



It is curious to reflect now that while British geologists 

 were flocking to the Somme valley to inspect the discoveries 

 there, similar "finds" of human implements and associated 

 mammalian remains had already been made in England itself 

 many long years before — namely in 1715, 1800, and 1836. But 

 these had attracted no attention, and indeed had been completely 

 forgotten. Let it be remembered also that to the late Dr. 

 Schmerling of Liege belongs the honour of having been the 

 first to show (in 1833), that man and the extinct mammalia 

 were contemporaneous, although his work lay neglected and 

 ignored for a quarter of a century. Such it would seem is the 

 fate of those who publish " unwelcome intelligence, opposed to 

 the prepossessions of the scientific as well as of the unscientific 

 public." 1 The Eev. Mr. MacEnery had arrived about the same 

 time as Schmerling at similar results, and was engaged in the 

 preparation of a memoir descriptive of his discoveries, when 

 death cut short his labours, and his MS. was lost sight of for 

 many years. Both Schmerling's and MacEnery's work was con- 

 fined to cave exploration, but Boucher de Perthes we have to 

 thank for opening our eyes to quite another line of evidence in 

 favour of the great antiquity of our race. Since the recognition 

 of the importance of his discoveries, rude stone implements 

 commingled with the remains of extinct mammals have been 

 found in British caves, and in certain ancient river-deposits in 

 the south-eastern counties of England, as also in similar 

 positions in many localities on the Continent ; so that We no 

 longer doubt that, in ages long anterior to our own, certain 

 tribes of cave-dwelling savages, and many large mammalian 

 animals, which are now either locally or wholly extinct, were 

 in joint occupation of Britain and the Continent. And the 

 more closely the evidence is considered, the farther into the 

 past does the period at which these cave-men lived seem to 

 recede. 



1 Lyell, Antiquity of Man, 4th edit., p. 71. 



