GEOLOGICAL TOPICS 



433 



mulate tresh material, to acquire more facts to still more clearly prove his case. 

 Erora clays far older than Galileo to those of oui' own the teachers of new ideas 

 have had to combat with the world for the reception and propagation of truths, 

 and the plaint of the editor of the present volume will be yet again repeated 

 in other words, but similar sense, by many others. 



" Unfortunately iii the sciences," says M. de Perthes, with veritable truth, 

 " when they have adopted an opiaion, good or bad, they do not like to change 

 it. They could not put in doubt the good faith of the author, but they said 

 that he had believed he had seen, and that he had deceived himself as to the 

 nature of the strata ; that the banks and ossiferous deposits which he had ex- 

 plored coidd not be tertiary, nor diluvial ; and that the flints were not worked." 



These last were grave objections, but the assertion of works of human art in 

 beds of later Tertiary age was such an iimovation upon all previous conceptions 

 of the antiquitv of the race of man, that it might be well received with caution, 

 if not with dislbelief. The objections, however, vanished ; the one on an in- 

 spection of the places — no one, vriih the least acquaintance with geology, 

 doubting, after seeing them, then- belonging to those erratic and superficial de- 

 posits kno^vn formerly as diluvium, but now more generally denominated 

 " drift" ; the other, the worked character of the discovered stones, was equally 

 confirmed by inspection. At the fh-st glance one saw " hatchets, knives, tools 

 of divers forms, but all proper to their work ; signs and figui'es that could not 

 be the effects of accident, or of a simple chance-blow." 



" Then it was pretended that these flints came from the surface, and that they 

 had been fashioned by the workmen, and afterwards introduced into the beds." 



This objection fell too at the aspect of the beds, of which the horizontal 

 position allowed the perception of all nifiltration, or vertical introduction. 

 Moreover, these vrorked-stones resembled those of the beds themselves in 

 having then colour ; tlie diversity of shades, more or less yeUow, bro^vn, or 

 ferruginous indicated exactly from which bed each came ; and this coloration 

 was not merely superficial, but had penetrated the substance of the worked- 

 flints, and formed part of it. 



" All this," continues the writer, " vv-as palpable to those who would open 

 their eyes, but these were a very small number; the majority continued to 

 deny that the fact was possible, and were satisfied not to assure themselves of 

 it." One by one, geologists and antiquaries have been induced to visit M. de 

 Perthes' collection at Abbeville, and one by one, astonished at the sight, have 

 solicited to inspect the beds, and have been convinced. Prestwich, Austen, 

 Mylue, members of the Council of the London Geological Society, have visited 

 the Prench antiquary's museum at Abbeville, have inspected the strata, and 

 have returned home bringing mth them flint-objects which they, with their 

 own hands, extracted from the banks of gravel containing mammoth and other 

 mammalian remains, around that town, and from near Amiens. Mr. Plower, 

 one of the party who accompanied those gentlemen, dug out a large and fine 

 fiint -instrument from a depth of eighteen inches from the vertical face of the 

 pit, in gravel undisturbed by the workmen's picks. M. Didron, the learned 

 archeologist, and other Prcnch savans have tardily followed each other in the 

 acknowledgement of this important fact, and M. de Perthes may well exultingly 

 exclaim "la presence d'ouvrages d'hommes dans le diluvium est aujourd'hui un 

 fait avere" 



The association of the primitive works of man with the bones and skeletons 

 of maimnoth, hippopotami, hyaenas, and others of the great extinct mammalia of 

 the Post-Pleistocene era does seem to be an established fact. 



So far so good for M. Boucher de Perthes, but something more requires to 

 be knoAvn. Por years past geologists of this and other countries, possessed of 

 preconceived notions, have invariably snubbed aU statements of the coincidence 



