74 
TUE GEOLOGIST. 
many years I have read much on tlie subject, and listened to all I could hear 
upon it ; yet for want of practical out-of-doors observation, I can but look ou 
myself as an amateur or admirer of the science, and not a professed geologist. 
I dare say, therefore, in what I am about to write, I may commit some geolo- 
gical heresies; nevertheless, 1 venture a few remarks upon a sidjject that has 
lately been much agitated in the geological world — I aUude to the discovery 
of works of human art, viz., flint-axes, &c., in the drift near Amiens, &c. 
Tliis discovery seems to be thought by some to upset the doctrine liitherto 
held of the recent origin of the human race on our globe, and I have even 
heard it said tliat it Tipsets the Bible history of that event. 
To me it appears that no such residt can follow the proof (if the fact be 
proved) of man's existence eotemporaneously with the deposition of the drift. 
That nught, indeed, cari^ the geological date of man's existence further back 
than hitherto supposed, bxit 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 are 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 di'ift, hitherto 
sujjposed (from the absence of man's bones and works of art) to be a pre- 
adamite 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 aU 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 tliis subiect 
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 abnost come to the 
conclusion that man was cotemi)oraneous with 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 cLrcumstauces of the 
case on the spot, near Amiens, to have arrived at the conclusion that man was 
in existence when the drift was deposited there as a geological formation, 
although he is still somewhat perplexed with certain difficulties that present 
themselves to his mind. 
The perusal of Mr. Flower's letter has, however, led my mind to a totally 
different conclusion, and from the description contained in it of what he saw 
and did, and of the eu-eumstanees 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 seems, from what I gather, that this drift near Amiens is not one con- 
tinuous bed of gravel, b\it occurs in localities distant from each other ; that the 
part of the spot in the drift where the flint hatchets alone are found is at 
Saint Acheul, and does not cover a space larger than a modern dweHiug-house ; 
the nearest point where the drift occurs again being at Saint Koch, I think 
two miles distant ; moreover, it is near Amiens, which in Julius Caesar's time 
was a well-known Celtic town called Samara Briva. And Jtilius Ca;sar himself 
tells us the Celts were accustomed, in burying their dead, to bury their valu- 
ables with them. It seems tliat the loa/s in rj/w is of an average height of 
twenty feet, and forms the capping or summit of a slight elevation resting on 
