GEOLOGICAL TOPICS. 



373 



liow it could be done by a current of water, however powerful it may be 

 supposed. A torrent overthrows but does not pile up. 



" One sees, then, torn off at their base by the weight of snow, these rocks 

 precipitated from the mountains in their icy envelope, launched afterwards 

 into the sea by the waves and torrents or by their own impulsion, driven by 

 the winds and currents from ocean to ocean, just as the polar icebergs still 

 are. These have been carried towards the coasts, and afterwards by the 

 irruptions or conflux of the seas thrown over the interiors of the lands. There^, 

 when tlieir icy vehicle has disappeared, they were dropped on the soil where we see 

 them at this hour, demanding of us why they are there when no other analogous 

 production shows itself either in the vicinity or even in the same region. 



" If we admit the carriage of these granite-blocks and others by ice, there is 

 still greater reason for recognizing the possibility that the smaller bodies, 

 bones, and debris belonged originally perhaps to latitudes very remote. 



Although we can not concur in the very speculative view set forth in it, 

 nevertheless, M. Boucher de Perthes" third chapter " on the affinities of form 

 and use of the stones called ' celts' of all epochs and of all countries," is one 

 of considerable interest. Here he justly observes that what has mainly 

 prevented their study being seriously taken up has been the want of books 

 upon the subject. "If some ancient authors," he says, "have spoken of them, 

 it is incidentally, and without attaching any great importance to their origin, 

 or saying a word about the circumstances of their discovery, or the place 

 whence they have come. In none of the States of Europe, except Denmark 

 and Sweden, have I seen any collection of them which deserves that title. The 

 objects exposed in our museums without any certificates of their origin, may 

 contribute to the ornament of a gallery, but not to the progress of science. 

 Isolated thus, they tell us nothing of the history of men, nor of their first 

 steps upon the earth. 



" I have endeavoured to avoid this reproach of isolation or doubtful origin by 

 not admitting as typical a single fragment of which the circumstances were not 

 perfectly rehable, and which was not accompanied by a sample of the earth 

 whence it came. 



" That which strikes us at once in these thousands of worked flints from all 

 parts of the world is their general likeness. Gathered from the turf-pits of 

 the Somme or the marshes of Sweden, Denmark, or Greenland, they resemble 

 each other so much that one would think they were made by the same work- 

 men. Moreover, between these productions of the north and south, between 

 these industrial essays of nations separated by the seas, there is a striking 

 resemblance, which becomes more apparent as the objects are larger and 

 simpler. 



" When one reflects upon it, this does not differ from that which daily passes 

 under our eyes. Children in every country have the same delights and the 

 same desires — hence even the same playthings. If they have not got them, 

 they invent them and make them, 



" Thus, too, the primitive peoples — those great children of Nature — have 

 acted : all had the same weapons because they had the same passions. Every- 

 where alike is it that with a club, a stake, or a sharpened stone, men have 

 begun to kill each other when they have thought that their hands were not 

 sufficient. 



" Everywhere, too, similar wants have necessitated similar tools and utensils. 

 Knives, vases, combs, spades, bows, arrows, fish-hooks, have been simultaneously 

 invented by peoples without communication with each other. 



" Not oiily have these races had need of arms, household goods, and tools, but 

 they required also finery, idols, amulets, talismans, and ornaments, and lastly, com- 

 memorative signs, which, substituted for word and gesture, took the place of 



