r,EOi,of;icAi, TOPICS. 
433 
imiliitc fiTsli niat-criiil, to Mn(|iiiro niorc I'licts to still more clreirly prove his case. 
l''miu (lays I'ar older tliau (julilco to those ol' our own the leacihcrs of new ideas 
iiavi! had 1,o eoiiiljiit with the world for the rece])t-ion and propagation of truths, 
and tlie plaint of tlic editor of the present volume will be yet agiiin repeated 
in other words, but similar sense, by many others. 
" Uid'ortnnately in the seit-nees," says M. dc Perthes, with veritable truth, 
"when they have adopted an opinion, good or bad, they do not like to cliange 
it. They could not put in doubt the good faith of the author, but they said 
that he liad believed he had seen, and that he liad deceived himself as to the 
nature of the strata ; that the banks and ossiferous deposits wdiich he had ex- 
plored coi Jd not be tertiary, nor diluvial ; and that the flints were not worked." 
These last were grave otjcctions, but the assertion of works of human art iu 
beds of later Tertiary age was such an innovation upon all ))rcvious couceptious 
of the antiquity of tlie race of man, that it might be weU received with caution, 
if not with disbelief. The objections, however, vanished ; the one on an iu- 
s])eetiou of the places — no one, with the least acquamtance with geology, 
doubting, after seeing them, t heir belonging to those erratic and superticial de- 
posits known formerly as diluvi'.ini, but now more generally deuommated 
" drift" ; the other, the worked cliaracter of the discovered stones, was equally 
coulirnicd by inspection. At the first glance one saw " hatchets, knives, tools 
of divers forms, but all proper to their work ; siijns and figures that could not 
be t he effects of accident, or of a simple chance-blow." 
" Then it was pretended that these flints came from the surface, and tliat they 
had been fashioned by the workmen, and afterwards introduced into the beds." 
This objection fell too at the aspect of the beds, of which the horizontal 
position allowed the perception of all infiltration, or vertical introduction. 
Moreover, these worked-stones resendiled those of the beds themselves iu 
having their colour ; the diversity of shades, more or less yellow, brown, or 
ferruginous indicated exactly from which bed each came ; and this coloration 
was not merely superficial, but had penetrated the substance of the worked- 
flints, and formed part of it. 
" All this," continues the writer, " was palpable to those who would open 
their eyes, but these were a very small number; the majority continued to 
deny that the fact was possible, and were satisfied not to assure themselves of 
it." One by one, geologists and antiquaries have been induced to visit M. de 
Perthes' collection at Abbeville, and one by one, astonished at the sight, have 
solicited to mspect the beds, and have been convinced. Prestwich, Austen, 
Mylue, members of the Council of the London Geological Society, have visited 
the French antiquary's museum at Abbeville, have inspected the strata, and 
have returned home bringing with them flint-objects which they, with their 
own hands, extracted ivoux the banks of gravel containing mammoth and other 
mammalian remains, arouud that town, and from near Amiens. Mr. Flowei', 
one of the party who accompanied those gentlemen, dug out a large and fine 
fUut-instrumeut from a depth of eighteen mches from the vertical face of the 
pit, in gravel undisturbed by the workmen's picks. M. Didron, the learned 
archeologist, and other French savans have tardily followed each other in the 
acknowledgement of this important fact, and M. de Perthes may weU exultingly 
exclaim " la presence d'ouvrages d'hommes dans le dUuvimn est aujourd'hui un 
fait avere" 
The associat ion of the primitive works of man with the bones and skeletons 
of mammoth, hippopotami, hyaenas, and others of the great extkict mammalia of 
the Post-Pleistocene era does seem to be an established fact. 
So far so good for M. Boucher de Perthes, but sometliiug more requires to 
be known. For years past geologists of this and other countries, possessed of 
preconceived notions, have invariably snubbed all statements of the coincidence 
