GEOLOGICAL TOPICS. 
481 
Alone in front of these masses of sand jiilcd in horizontal beds, curved into a 
vault which the pick has liollowed out, he liesitatcs at the task he lias imposed 
u])on himself, to examine, at the risk of being overwhelmed by tlieir falling in, 
these innumerable flints one by one. 
" Hajipy were he if the result were assured ; but thousands of these stones will 
pass through his hands without the least trace — without the slightest sign indi- 
cathig to him the workmanship he requires; he recognizes but the friction of 
the waves, or the effect of the dashing of one stone against another. 
" It is thus one searches long without finding, or finding without recognizing 
that for which he seeks. Without doubt there are some of these worked flints 
in which the handiwork of man is seen at once, but there are others where the 
human workmanship appears only after an attentive examination, and when the 
fragment is entirely disengaged from the particles of sand and clay which en- 
veloped it. One comprehends thus how they have escaped former investigations." 
Li this, M. de Perthes speaks by his own experience. " How many of these 
flints," says he, " have I handled in every sense, measured upon all their faces, 
without distinguishing a single one worthy of being preserved, and it is amongst 
those, even in the banks where I had found none of them, that I have since 
collected them by hundreds. Evidently some had passed under my view, but 
then my eyes, less experienced, had not seen them." 
" Since then," he continues, " I have been more fortunate. How many times 
the pick of the workman has launched at my feet the stone where without hesita- 
tion we distinguished the human hand ! ^Vhat joy for us both ! the workman 
in receiving his promised coin, I in carrying off my treasure ! At other times 
the discovery was less prompt, the desired stone had escaped the work- 
men. One trace, almost mvisible, showed me it amongst a thousand. Soon 
this trace led me to another, and this again to another. The workmanship 
was evident. It was a type, a new figure for me ; lastly it was a fine dis- 
covery — fine in my eyes, at least ; for of these inscriptions of the first ages, of 
this subterranean language, very few have comprehended the future. T\Tiat 
matter, if they one day comprehend it, and if the light bursts out from this 
feeble ray ? 
" Had it not been so, I should not regret either my time or my pains ; for, 
in proportion as I progressed in this unknown tongue, happy in my efforts, I 
abandoned myself to my dreams ; I believed myself to be that traveller to whom 
a new world revealed itself. 
" I had foreseen for a long time the existence of this antediluvian race, and 
during many yearshadanticipatedmy joy of proving it, when in these banks which 
the geologist has so often declared barren and antecedent to man, I should iind 
at last the proof of his existence, or hi defaidt of his bones, the traces of his 
works. 
" Of these works, after so many ages and terrible commotions, those only 
of which the materi;d was hard and solid, could be able to resist destruction. 
The movements of the waves, their dissolving action, and the shock of the 
erratic blocks, would have broken and pulverized all that which was friable or 
oxidizable. If the bones of so many animals, of those millions of elephants, of 
hippopotami, of mastodons, rhinoceroses, &c., have not been pounded, it is 
because they were swept away living and in their flesh. These great mam- 
mifers, covered with their skin and their hair, have been presei-ved by this triple 
envelope. In the new vaUeys, then, in those reservoirs scooped out by the 
torrent, are piled peU-meU bodies and relics, traces of that which had been 
brought to an end. 
" Is it not what we see after inundations and rain-storms ? Yes. It was in 
these deposits, in these deluvial debris, that I did at last find a trace of 
man, and my joy was great when I had found it." 
