282 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
tlio ground, and burying themselves, and other equally untenable 
notions, but these waxed fewer and fewer, not by dying out, but by 
becoming converts to tlie novel truths. Others there were who 
enthusiastically grasped at everything that came in their way, and 
attempted to send back half the antiquities of the historic period to 
the Gravel age. These still exist, and if their labours be a little rash, 
they are not altogether useless. If they make a great many mistakes, 
they now and then drop on a new fact, and tliat covers a multitude 
of failures. Others there are, and these are the best of all, saving 
the real workers for science, who lose no chance of collecting any- 
thing they think may afford useful knowledge. The people, so com- 
mon at one time, with the dreadful mental squint about the flint 
implements of the gravel age are now, as we have said, few and far 
between, but there are still some possessed of the dangerous slight 
cast of mental obliquity, if we mistake not — :that is, if the obliquity 
does not lie with ourselves. Of course we do not think it can, 
nobody ever does. Our worthy contemporary the ' Parthenon,' who 
says, or rather prints a great many good things, has lately printed a 
translation, from the French ' Comptes-Eendus,' of a paper by M. Sci- 
pion Gras, who brings up a question we really had thought completely 
settled. AYe knew our best men had gone to see ; we knew they had 
come back testifying to the facts. But now M. Gras comes forward 
with an article " On the Insufficiency of the Arguments drawn from 
the Position of the Worked Plints of St. Acheul to show the Exist- 
ence of Man during the Quaternary Period." There is mental obli- 
quity somewhere, that is certain ; we fear it rests with M. Gras, for 
he says he went to St. Acheul, " desirous of enlightening his doubts " 
as to the conclusions drawn from the position of the flint axes there. 
Of course we saw the notice of M. Gras' paper in the ' Comptes- 
Kendus,' where it appeared a short time before our contemporary 
printed the translation ; we think also we saw it noticed in ' Cosmos,' 
but we thought it best to let it alone. AYe saw no good in stirring 
up uselessly a vexed question, by a reference to a paper, the argu- 
ments in which were either founded on erroneous bases or altogether 
futile. As, however, our respected contemporary has brought the 
paper before English readers, who otherwise perhaps would never 
have heard at all of it, we cannot let M. Gras' opinions pass without 
comment. M. Gras shall, however, have fair play at our hands. AYe 
will give the translation intact before our comments. He begins : — 
" There are found at St. Acheul and in its neighbourhood (leaving out 
of question the more elevated plateaux) two diluvial deposits which appear 
