Anthropology: The Tertiary Man. 43 



the Magonnais, flints of precisely this description, 

 with the fracture which is thought to reveal an in- 

 tentional act of breaking, and yet which is referable 

 in this case to atmospheric agents. Besides, were 

 there no hoofs, no tramping, no rolling, no crashing, 

 in the days of the great mammalians, and among 

 the gigantic disturbances of past ages; when in the 

 ordinary flow of those mighty volumes of water, 

 that eroded the primitive beds of rivers, the col- 

 lapsing of huge blocks of silex brought about col- 

 lisions, more than are needed for myriads of con- 

 choidal fractures and bulbs of percussion to be 

 laid out on the bottom of the waters? Again, if 

 any tertiary man broke some of the flints, he must 

 have lived at the bottom of the sea to do it; for 

 those exhibited by M. Cels, just recently, to the 

 Anthropological Society of Brussels, by way of 

 proving the tertiary man's existence, are taken from 

 lower eocene sediments which are observed to be 

 altogether marine, containing mollusks, fishes, chel- 

 onians, and the like. 



43. Nor does the disintegration of the surface in 

 a flint seem to be due to fire alone. If it is, how- 

 ever, were there no prairie fires, no forest fires, 

 breaking out spontaneously then, as they do now ? 



44, And, again, if we inspect those fossil bones 

 of animals, with the irregular incisions made in 

 them, are we inclined to believe that a man only 

 could make an incision, particularly an irregular 

 one ? It may be that wild beasts preyed upon one 



