480 
TUE GEOLOGIST. 
It. is thus that autlior opens out a no,w braiicli of science— " Archco-gcology" 
for the investigations of tlie historian, the anti(inary, and tlic geologist. 
" Since," cont inues the writer of the preface before nuoted, " tJic way is 
o])cn, let ns follow the autlun- ; the first wlio do so will find ample reward. 
Soon it will not be a single gallery thai will sulhcc to contain the relies of the 
past : it is an ent ire museum under tiie porticos of which should figure also 
the tools, the dolmans, the raised stones, antique evidences, if not of the 
apt itude, at least of tlie power, of man ; for the erection of these monoliths 
without the aid of machines is still a problem. But, hasten we on : that 
which age and barbarism have spared disappears before civilization. Broken by 
the hammer or cut by the saw, these oldest of our monument s have already, at 
more than one point, served to pave the road, or to form the abutment of a 
bridge. If governmental protection docs not take them under its safe-guard 
they will all perish. , . . No! these stones great and small, arms, 
utensils, idols, symbols, or characters, arc not to be disdamed : a whole suite 
of revelations is there. Not solely those which prove the existence of a people, 
but those which shew its whole life, for they indicate not simply their domestic 
habits, their means of living or of satisfying tlie necessities of the moment, 
. . they prove that there was in them a sentiment of futurity, a belief, 
a faith, a religious want, an adoration, lastly that they had a perception of the 
divmity. Yes ! upon the first men who united their efforts to dress this stone, 
who worked off the angles to make the form regular ... a ray of 
light from on high had descended ; they had (b'awn near to heaven ; it was a 
lirst lioinage wliich they rendered to God. Let us render it like them, and 
break not His altar." 
There is certamly something very beautiful in these speculations ; and no- 
thing will link our minds so closely to tlic study of the changing phases of the 
earth's anti([ue history as thus associating the primitive tribes of our race 
with the events of a vastly remote geologic age. M. Boucher do Perthes' 
book is however highly speculative througliout ; and we would have our readers 
bear in mind that wc are at present only attempting to detail, as concisely and 
as accurately as we can, the ideas he has put before the world. Undoubtedly 
these speculations were in the first Instance, and still are, a great barrier to 
the acceptance of his book ; for in many instance we ourselves camiot but re- 
gard them as visionary. In saying this, however, we wish not to detract from 
the real merits of his labours, for we willingly admit that in some of the wildest 
of his notions, there lies latent a germ of truth, valuable alike to the antiquary 
and to the geologist. 
It is somehow a character of the French light style of writing that they tell 
you a great deal about themselves, at the same time that they are telling their 
story and describing what they have seen. The reward of the geologist, as 
M. Boucher de Perthes in his first chapter aptly remarks, is immediate and 
positive. He sees at once in the simple section the superposition of the beds, 
their identical or their difl'erent character. The same with the archeeologist. It 
is not difficult in the soil wliich he opens to perceive the fibula, the statue, or 
the coin ; the broken fragments of a vase, a brick, or tile inspire him with con- 
fidence, and the hope of finding better, and hope doubles the zeal of even 
the mere workman who always believes in finding a hoard of gold. " It is not 
thus in the diluvium. There everything is sand, flints, blocks of stone, and 
far and far between, some gigantic tooth, some enormous fragment of the head 
or femur of an elephant, or a rhinoceros, which, after having evoked the 
curiosity of the worker leaves him but regret : scarcely is the debris of the 
giant of former ages divested of its matrix and exposed to the air than one sees 
it crumble away and resolve itself into dust. What remains then for the 
inquirer ! A souvenir, an iuilication : still it is not this for which he searches. 
