GEOLOGICAL TOPICS, 



481 



Alone in front of these masses of sand piled in horizontal beds, curred into a 

 vault which the pick has hollowed out, he hesitates at the task he has imposed 

 upon himself, to examine, at the risk of being overwhelmed by their falling in, 

 these innumerable flints one by one. 



" Happy were he if the result were assured ; but thousands of these stones will 

 pass through his hands without the least trace — without the slightest sign indi- 

 cating to him the workmanship he requires ; he recognizes but the friction of 

 the waves, or the effect of the dashing of one stone against another. 



" It is thus one searches long without finding, or finding without recognizing 

 that for which he seeks. Without doubt there are some of these worked flints 

 in which the handiwork of man is seen at once, but there are others where the 

 human workmansliip appears only after an attentive examination, and when the 

 fragment is entirely disengaged from the particles of sand and clay which en- 

 veloped it. One comprehends thus how they have escaped former investigations." 



In this, M. de Perthes speaks by his own experience. " How many of these 

 flints," says he, " have I handled in every sense, measured upon all their faces, 

 "without distinguishing a single one worthy of being preserved, and it is amongst 

 those, even in the banks where I had found none of them, that I have since 

 collected them by hundreds. Evidently some had passed under my view, but 

 then my eyes, less experienced, had not seen them." 



" Since then," he continues, " I have been more fortunate. How many times 

 the pick of the workman has launched at my feet the stone where without hesita- 

 tion we distinguished the human hand ! What joy for us both ! the workman 

 in receiving his promised coin, I in carrying ofp my treasure ! At other times 

 the discovery was less prompt, the desired stone had escaped the w"ork- 

 men. One trace, almost invisible, showed me it amongst a thousand. Soon 

 this trace led me to another, and this again to another. The workmanship 

 was evident. It was a type, a new figure for me ; lastly it was a fine dis- 

 covery—fine in my eyes, at least ; for of these inscriptions of the first ages, of 

 this subterranean language, very few have comprehended the future. T\Tiat 

 matter, if they one day comprehend it, and if the light bursts out fi'om this 

 feeble ray ? 



" Had it not been so, I should not regret either my time or my pains ; for, 

 in proportion as I progressed in this unknown tongue, happy in my elforts, I 

 abandoned myself to my dreams ; I believed myseK to be that traveller to whom 

 a new world revealed itself. 



" I had foreseen for a long time the existence of this antediluvian race, and 

 during many years had anticipatedmy joy of proving it, when in these banks which 

 the geologist has so often declared barren and antecedent to man, I should find 

 at last the proof of his existence, or in default of his bones, the traces of his 

 works. 



" Of these works, after so many ages and terrible commotions, those only 

 of which the material was hard and solid, could be able to resist destruction. 

 The movements of the waves, tlieir dissolving action, and the shock of the 

 erratic blocks, would have broken and pulverized all that which was friable or 

 oxidizable. If the bones of so many animals, of those millions of elephants, of 

 hippopotami, of mastodons, rhinoceroses, &c., have not been pounded, it is 

 because they were swept away living and in their flesh. These great mam- 

 mifers, covered with their skin and their hair, have been preserved by this triple 

 envelope. In the new valleys, then, in those reservoirs scooped out by the 

 torrent, are piled peU-mell bodies and relics, traces of that which had been 

 brought to an end. 



"is it not what vre see after inundations and rain-storms ? Yes. It was in 

 these deposits, in these deluvial debris, that I did at last find a trace of 

 man, and my joy was great when I had found it." 



