370 
years — when compared with their great rarity elsewhere, is not per- 
haps so curious as at first sight it may appear to be. Flint imple- 
ments can only be made where flints are accessible ; and it is well 
known that the flints of particular beds, or strata, of the chalk, are 
more easily fashioned than others. It is therefore probable that 
some such favourable locality had existed in the chalk of that part 
of France, and that what may be called a manufactory of them had 
consequently been established there. It is remarkable that some of 
the implements are only half finished, whilst all of them exhibit 
such sharp edges and angles as are sufficient to prove that they 
have not been transported far from the spot where they were made, 
nor subjected to long wear from use. 
On the whole, then, it is not to be doubted that the discovery of 
human implements under repeated beds of aqueous drift and sedi- 
ment, so high above the levels of existing rivers, or of the existing 
sea, is a fact of very great significance and importance. In its 
bearing on geology, it is principally interesting as proving at how 
recent a period portions at least of the earth have been subject to 
powerful and rapid diluvial action. In its bearing on human 
chronology, everything depends on the degree of suddenness and 
rapidity with which water may have been brought to act upon the 
former surface. But here anything like data for positive computa- 
tion entirely fails us. We have no knowledge, in historic times, of 
any aqueous operation on so grand a scale. Making, however, 
every deduction which can be made, we must be prepared to find that 
the facts thus brought to light in the valley of the Somme will be 
held to furnish important collateral evidence in support of the 
reasoning founded on other sciences, such as philology and ethnology, 
which has long demanded, for the development of our race, a number 
of years far exceeding that which is allowed by the chronology pre- 
viously received. It is the beautiful expression of Sir Thomas 
Browne, which I find quoted by Dr Mantell in a former paper on 
this subject, that “ Time conferreth a dignity upon the most trifling 
thing that resisteth his power ; ” and it is impossible to look at 
these rude implements — perhaps the earliest efforts of our race, in 
the simplest arts of life — without being impressed with the high 
interest of the questions with which they seem to be inseparably 
connected. 
