28 REV. D. GATH WHITLEY, PRIMEVAL MAN IN BELGIUM. 
can be discovered.* * * § Moreover, the hippopotamus and the 
mollusk Gyrena Jhtminalis lived in Belgium when the pebbly 
deposit was forming, and it is impossible to believe that glaciers 
and ice-sheets covered the country at the time when these 
inhabitants of warm countries abounded in its rivers. The 
yellow clay with blocks, is spread all over Belgium, on the hills 
and in the valleys, and owes its origin to some great and general 
cause, acting all over the country. Ice is excluded from the 
reasons just stated, which apply with similar force to the Loess, 
the distribution of which is as widespread and universal as that 
of the yellow clay. It has been suggested by many theorists, 
such as M. Dollfus,f and Professor James Geikie,+ that the Loess 
was formed by vast Hoods which swept over Northern Europe 
when the great ice-sheets formed during the Glacial Period 
were rapidly melting ; but here again it is clear that such 
inhabitants of warm climates as the hippopotamus and the 
Gyrena Jluminalis could not have lived amidst ice-sheets and 
frozen rivers. 
It is certain that water spread out these great beds of sand 
and clay, which enwrap Belgium like a vast mantle, and when 
these deposits were laid down the climate must have been mild 
and warm. The late Duke of Argyll has acutely pointed out,§ 
that every great Hood leaves as its result, three kinds of deposits, 
clay, sand and gravel, and that great stones and boulders are 
rolled along by the tumultuous waters and dropped in all 
situations. This is exactly what we find in Belgium and 
Northern France ; and as these deposits of sand, clay and gravel, 
of the Quaternary Period, contain the bones and Hint weapons 
of Man, we are justified in concluding that at the close of the 
Quaternary Era an extensive flood poured its waters over 
Northern Europe, drowning the -great mammalia and over- 
whelming Man. This is the theory held by M. Dupont, and it 
is also the opinion held by MM. Tardy, d’Acy, and Belgrand in 
France, by the late Sir Joseph Prestwich, and Sir Henry 
Howorth in England. If this idea is correct — and all geological 
evidence is in its favour — it proves that the Quaternary beds 
were formed rapidly. It also indicates that, as these deposits 
contain the bones and weapons of Man, any attempt therefore 
* Esquisse Geologique du Ford de la France, pp. 3, 10. 
t Bulletin de la Society Geologique de France. Tome vii, Fevrier, 1879. 
p. 325. 
\ Prehistoric Europe , p. 162. 
§ Geology and the Deluge, pp. 21, 22. 
