M. GSAS' ATTACK 02f THE FLINT-TMPLEME^TTS. 



285 



mental vision, or our own. If we err, however, fortunately vre shall 

 be in goodly company, for we shall be on the side of Prestwich, Ei- 

 gollet, Lyell, Evans, and those many others who hold tlie like opi- 

 nions with ourselves upon the subjects M. Gras attacks. Let M. 

 Gras, however, speak his own arguments : — 



" These different circumstances, in appearance so conclusive, are not 

 however irreconcilable with the idea of diggings having been made, at 

 a certain epoch, in the soil. Before demonstrating this, I must dwell upon 

 some important facts. The first is, the integrity and perfect preservation 

 of the axes ; they look as if just come from the hands of the workman. It 

 has been inferred (the inference was unavoidable) that they were buried 

 on the spot, or brought from very near localities. A second fact, not less 

 remarkable, is the truly astonishing multitude of these axes. The number 

 of them found at St. Acheul, in the compass of about a hectare (two 

 acres), has been estimated at more than three thousand. The rich collec- 

 tion of M. Boucher de Perthes alone contains more than a thousand. M. 

 Albert Gaudry, who has caused diggings to be made, has seen nine of 

 them disinterred, one after another, in close succession. The fact of the 

 multitude of worked flints, joined to the entireness of their edges, shows 

 clearly that there was formerly a considerable manufacture of these objects 

 on the spot. If we adopt the hypothesis of those who would place this 

 manufacture beyond historic times, it must needs be admitted that there 

 existed on the banks of the ancient valley of the Somme a x3eople of the 

 quaternary epoch occupied in cutting axes by thousands. As evidently it 

 could not use them all, it must doubtless have supplied them to other qua- 

 ternary races of the neighbouring countries. But if this were so, why has 

 this industrial population of the ancient world left no other trace of its 

 existence except these rudely-fashioned flints ? Why, above all, do we 

 not find human remains in the diluvium ? Their absence is the more 

 astonishing, as it is not uncommon to find there the remains of elephants, 

 rhinoceroses, and other animals. If men, so civilized as to occupy them- 

 selves with commerce, lived on the banks of the Somme at the commence- 

 ment of the quaternar}^ period, they must have constructed habitations 

 there, and these would be seen now in the mass of diluvium which at a 

 later period filled up the valley ; they would even be perfectly preserved 

 in it. Now this deposit has never presented the least vestige of a habita- 

 tion, nor even of other products of human industry, excepting flint objects. 

 Another consideration strengthens all these grounds of doubt; worked 

 flints, similar to those which are claimed as diluvian, have been found in 

 such a position, that it has been necessary to attribute to them a modern 

 origin. M. Toillez, an archseologist and engineer of Mens, possesses a 

 collection of four hundred axes, which for the most part are rough, and do 

 not difi'er sensibly from those of St. Acheul ; nevertheless, they have all 

 been collected at the surface of the soil. Is it admissible to suppose that 

 products so similar were manufactured, the one set at the commencement 

 of the quaternary period, the other during the now existing period, seeing 

 that an immense interval of time separates the two epochs ? " 



Here again we select the points of attack : — 1. TJie perfect pre- 

 servation of the axes, — " They look as if they had just come from the 

 hands of th« workmen.'* Say some leak," and then we shall reply 



