40 REV. D. GATH WHITLEY, PRIMEVAL MAN IN BELGIUM. 
Now, let the question be asked, How was Man able to kill 
these gigantic animals ? All the weapons that Man at that 
time possessed were of flint and bone of the rudest character 
conceivable. At the end of their book, Fraipont and Tihon give 
a series of plates in which are figured the rude flint weapons 
Used by Primeval Man in Belgium. Yet with these miserable 
weapons the men of those early days boldly attacked and 
conquered the huge beasts above enumerated. Doubtless man 
set snares, traps, and pitfalls for the elephant and the rhinoceros, 
and by doing so he showed his intelligence and resource. 
All this indicates that the earliest men were as truly human 
as are the cleverest savages of to-day. The men who, with the 
Crudest stone weapons, hunted the Mammoth, the lion, and the 
Still more terrible sabre-toothed tiger,* were possessed of 
human faculties, and were truly giants in skill and courage. 
The north-eastern portions of France are overspread with 
superficial deposits of Quaternary Age, precisely resembling 
those of Belgium, as is clearly set forth by Professor Gosselet, 
of Lille, in the work the title of which appears at the head of 
this article. f Gosselet has done most valuable geological work 
in France, and so highly has that work been appreciated in 
this country, that in 1882 he was awarded the Murchison gold 
medal by the Geological Society of London. He traces the 
great beds of sand, clay, and gravel, which cover so large a 
portion of Belgium into France, and shows that in all their 
main features they are similar. His first seventeen pages are 
introductory, and he then proceeds to describe the Quaternary 
beds of Northern France in detail. After a close study of the 
elaborate description given by the talented French geologist, 
the reader comes to the following conclusions. The whole of 
North-Eastern France is covered for thousands of square miles 
with enormous deposits of clay, sand, and gravel. These beds 
are found sometimes in the valleys, sometimes on the slopes of 
the hills that border them, and sometimes on the tops of the 
table-lands. The deposits of which we speak were all formed 
at the same time, geologically speaking, for they all contain the 
bones of the same animals, which are, the lion, hyiena, elephant, 
rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. How were these vast deposits 
•of clay and gravel which cover the country formed ? Gosselet 
•declares that he cannot tell, for, according to him, only in the 
bottom of the valleys is fluviatile action discernible, whilst lie 
* The Machairodus. 
t Esquisse Geologique du Nord de la France. 
