KEV. D. GATH WHITLEY, PKIMEVAL MAN IN BELGIUM. 41 
states that the origin of the extensive deposits which cover the 
uplands is unknown. The problem, however, is not altogether 
hopeless of solution. It is said by many able geologists* that 
the vast gravel beds are of fluviatile origin, and were deposited 
by rivers. But no rivers could have ever flowed along the tops 
of the hills, and over the surface of upland plateaux, and 
across watersheds, and in all these situations we find the same 
beds of gravel as are discovered in the valleys. In Northern 
France also there are numerous dry valleys where no rivers ever 
run or ever have run in the memory of man, and yet, in these 
dry valleys there are to be found exactly the same beds of 
gravel as may be seen in the great valleys through which rivers 
now flow.-f The same cause which produced the gravels in the 
dry valleys may have formed them in the genuine river 
valleys. Further, we have to take into consideration the 
following remarkable fact. All the gravels in the valleys contain 
numerous bones of extinct mammals, and frequently entire 
skeletons have been discovered in these gravel beds. In the 
dry valleys, also, the' bones of the same animals occur in the 
gravels. In the deposits of gravel all over France, similar 
phenomenon have been again presented. Now, how came the 
bones and skeletons of these great beasts in these gravels beds ? 
We are told that the animals were washed into the streams 
and rivers, and drowned, but let us see what this statement 
implies, as such animals are rarely swept away by the 
ordinary river floods in Africa. Such a tiling is rare, for 
these animals are too wary to be overwhelmed. Whence came 
the water to form these extensive floods ? How could small 
streams suddenly swell to such an extraordinary size, that they 
were able to submerge these animals ? The only rational 
solution of the problem is, that at the time when the Quater- 
nary gravels were formed a tremendous Flood swept over 
Northern Europe, by which Man and the great mammalia then 
living were overwhelmed and swept away. 
Here w.e close our notice of Primitive Man. The authors 
whose works we have followed are able and trustworthy. Their 
writings are most valuable, and to all students of the primitive 
condition of Man we most earnestly commend a study of the 
Quaternary deposits and the hone-caves of France and Belgium. 
* Such as Sir Charles Lyell, Sir John Evans, and Lord Avebury, 
t An extensive depression and submergence of the land took place 
after the “ Glacial Period ” in Britain and parts of Western Europe, and 
it is to this period the formation of the “ high-level ” gravels is, in all 
probability, to be referred. — Ed. 
D 2 
