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THE GEOLOGIST. 



many years I have read much on the subject, and listened to all I could hear 

 upon it ; yet for want of practical out-of-doors observation, I can but look on 

 myself as an amateur or admirer of the science, and not a professed geologist. 

 I dare sav, therefore, in what I am about to write, I may commit some geolo- 

 gical heresies; nevertheless, I venture a few remarks upon a subject that has 

 lately been much agitated in the geological world— I allude to the discovery 

 of works of human art, viz., flint-axes, &c., in the drift near Amiens, &c. 



This discovery seems to be thought by some to upset the doctrine hitherto 

 held of the recent origin of the human race on our globe, and I have even 

 heard it said that it upsets the Bible history of that event. 



To me it appears that no such result can follow the proof (if the fact be 

 proved) of man's existence eotemporaneously with the deposition of the drift. 

 That might, indeed, carry the geological date of man's existence further back 

 tlian hitherto supposed, but not the chronological date of his creation — that is 

 if it be a fact established beyond doubt that drift is clearly a formation which 

 has been deposited prior to the modern deposits, as they ai-e called, in which 

 last alone remains of man and his works have heretofore been supposed to have 

 been found. 



The supposed discovery of flint hatchets in the original drift would not vary 

 the chronological date of man's creation, but only prove that the drift, hitherto 

 supposed (from the absence of man's bones and works of art) to be a pre- 

 adaraite formation, is, in fact, post-adamite, and one of the modern formations. 

 At least that is the conclusion I should come to, and not that the period of 

 man's existence on earth is shown thereby to be at all more ancient than 

 hitherto supposed, but only that the time of the deposition of the drift is not 

 so far back in point of time as it had been calculated to be. 



I see no reason, therefore, for that fear which some have expressed lest the 

 investigation of the alleged discovery should unsettle men's minds as to the 

 truth of the Bible history of man's creation. 



Now, sir, I have carefully read what Sir Charles Lyell said on this subject 

 in his addi'ess at the meeting of the British Association at Aberdeen, and all 

 that was said there, and since upon it by others, and I had almost come to the 

 conclusion that man was cotemporaneous vtdth the mammoth and other extinct 

 animals whose remains are found in the drift, when I happened to read in the 

 "Times" of the 18th November, 1859, a letter from Mr. J. W. Flower, who, 

 on the whole, seems to me, from an examination of the circumstances of the 

 case on tlie spot, near Amiens, to have arrived at the conclusion that man was 

 in existence when the di-ift was deposited there as a geological formation, 

 although he is still somewhat perplexed with certain difficulties that present 

 tlicmsclves to liis mind. 



Tlie perusal of ^Mr. Flower's letter has, however, led my mind to a totally 

 diil'ercnt conclusion, and from the description contained in it of what he saw 

 and did, and of tlic circumstances of the case, I arrive at the result that the 

 particular place in the drift, where alone it seems these flint hatchets have been 

 disinterred, is an ancient Celtic tumulus. 



It soeuis, from what I gather, that this drift near Amiens is not one con- 

 tinuous bed of gravel, but occurs in localities distant from each other; that the 

 imrt of the spot in the drift where the flint hatchets alone are foimd is at 

 JSaiiit Acheul, and docs not cover a space larger than a modern dwelling-house ; 

 the nearest point where the di-ii"t occiu-s again being at Saint Roch, I think 

 two miles distant ; moreover, it is near Amiens, which in Julius Caesar's time 

 was a woU-kuowu Celtic town called Samara Briva. And Julius Caesar himself 

 tells us the Celts were accustomed, in biu-ving their dead, to biuT their valu- 

 ables with them. ^ It seems that the Iocks^ in quo is of au average height of 

 twenty feet, and forms the capping or summit of a slight elevation resting on 



