218 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
y a quelques mois, de certain fragments humains trouves dans des 
cavernes a ossements de nos provinces meridionales, mais il suffit 
qu’ils aient ete trouves dans les cavernes pour qu’ils rentrent dans 
la regie ” {Discolors sur les revolutions du Globe, p. 89). 
The discovery by M. Boucher de Perthes of rude flint implements, 
associated with the bones of the mammoth and other extinct 
animals, in the ancient gravel beds of the valley of the Somme, at 
various levels considerably above the present highest flood-marks 
of the river, equally failed to attract scientific attention. An ac- 
count of his researches, under the title Antiquites Celtiques et Ante- 
diluviennes, was published in 1817, but for upwards of ten years 
it lay absolutely unheeded. 
Interest in these novel speculations became now greatly enhanced 
in consequence of equally important and far-reaching discoveries in 
the collateral sciences. The entire borderland of geology and 
anthropology was being better understood, especially as regards the 
remarkable glacial phenomena of Quaternary times in northern and 
western Europe ; and archaeology proper, independently of its new- 
born palaeolithic phase, had acquired a wider significance, owing to 
the more rigid and scientific methods adopted in its study. The 
Scandinavian savants, despairing of being ever able to elucidate the 
early history of their country by means of the ancient Sagas and 
other traditionary sources, were now subjecting the archaic remains, 
so profusely scattered over the country, to the most crucial tests 
which scientific ingenuity could devise. All departments of know- 
ledge — geology, hydrography, conchology, zoology, botany, and 
ethnology — were enlisted in this national work. In this manner, 
and with such resources, they examined peat mosses, graves, mega- 
lithic monuments, refuse heaps, and, in short, everything that was 
likely to throw light on the culture and civilisation of the pre- 
historic people of their country. The successive discoveries of 
Kqkkenmpddings in Denmark and lake-dwellings in Switzerland, 
with the vast and varied wealth of prehistoric materials which 
they disclosed, now also began to attract universal attention. 
While these problems and numerous side issues were being dis- 
cussed, the scientific world was startled in 1859 by the publication 
of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. In this work the author 
advocated, with singular completeness and ability, that the various 
