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which we know from the researches in Denmark and Switz- 
erland to be of an age so great that it can only be expressed 
in thousands of years. Yet all these are subsequent to the 
excavation of the valley ; what antiquity then are we to 
ascribe to the men who lived when the Somme was but 
beginning its great task ? No one can properly appreciate 
the time required who has not stood on the heights of 
Liercourt, Picquigny, or on one of the other points over- 
looking the valley : nor, I am sure, could any geologist 
return from such a visit without an overpowering sense 
of the change which has taken place, and the enormous 
time which must have elapsed since the first appearance of 
man in Western Europe. 
But were these the first settlers in Europe ? M. Lartet 
answers in the negative, and ingeniously attempts to con- 
struct a Palacontological Chronology. (Ann. Sci. Nat. iv. ; 
Ser. Y. xv. 6217.) The great cave bear (Ursus spelceus) has 
been frequently found associated with man in caves, but its 
remains have, according to M. Lartet, not yet been found in 
the river drifts. The species is indeed quoted by Messrs. 
Buteux and Ravin, on whose authority it is also given by 
Messrs. Prestwich and Evans ; but M. Lartet, after careful 
examination, not having been able to find the specimen 
originally attributed to this species, concludes that the Ursus 
spelceus perished at an earlier period, and that the JSycena 
spekea and the Felis spelcea belong only to the earliest beds 
of the drift. The caves, therefore, in which these animals 
have been found associated with the remains of men, indicate, 
he thinks, a still greater antiquity for the human race. 
Negative evidence in Palaeontology must indeed always 
be regarded with suspicion, but I may at least be permitted 
to repeat the opinion that it is not in a northern country and 
in a cold climate that we shall find the first traces of man. 
No barbarous nation would choose such an abode ; civilised 
