355 
Professor Hughes seems to rest his whole argument on the fact of the 
existence of these terraces. But it is positively asserted by those who have 
made the most careful examinations, that there are no terraces in the case. 
This is the statement of Mr. Alfred Tylor, F.G.S. It is positively asserted 
by Professor Andrews, of Chicago. And in a paper read before the 
“Geologists’ Association” (see Proceedings, vol. iv. No. 5), by Mr. James 
Parker, F.G.S., &c., on the Somme Valley, the same declaration is made.* 
“ I need not notice at length,” says Mr. Parker, “ the terraced character 
which is given to the banks in the section [of Sir C. Lyell], and which, of 
course, goes far to help the hypothesis of river action. Mr. Tylor, in a 
series of carefully-measured sections, has shown that these terraces do not 
exist in any part which he has explored. I can add my testimony to the 
fact that no continuous horizontal terraces exist in any part I have explored 
also (and I may say I have traversed quite three-fourths of the course of the 
Somme ) ; certainly not of the character as shown in the section” (p. 19). 
As to the rate of excavation of its bed by a river, I wish to remark that 
that depends on the character of the material through which the stream 
passes, on the volume and velocity of the water, and on the movements of 
elevation or depression of the coast-lines. Now, let us suppose that when 
the sea and the Somme Eiver at St. Valery stood 100 feet higher, suddenly, 
from some cause, the level of the sea should fall, or, which is the same 
thing, that the land should rise. In this case, through a mud bottom, or 
through gravel and sand, the river would cut a deeper channel back in a 
very brief time. 
Professor Hughes refers also to the change in the fauna which has taken 
place since the palaeolithic times. I have discussed this elsewhere. I will 
only remark here, that it is now admitted that the reindeer was found in 
Central Europe at the beginning of our era, and that the lion was found in 
Thessaly about the same date. The Irish elk lived also to historic times. 
In America the remains of the mastodon are found habitually under circum- 
stances implying the existence of the animal only a few thousand years ago. 
All are familiar with the discoveries in connection with the mammoth and 
rhinoceros tichorinus in Siberia. 
I think the excavation theory advocated by Professor Hughes is not 
held on the Continent, nor in America. Professor Dana, certainly one of 
the greatest of living geologists, and who holds to the antiquity of man, 
remarks in his Manual of Geology (p. 553), speaking of what he calls the 
Post-glacial flood : “The fact that such a flood, vast beyond conception, was 
the final event in the history of the glacier, is manifest in the peculiar 
stratification of the flood-made deposits, and in the spread of the stratified 
Drift southward along the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf, as first made 
known by Hilgard. Only under the rapid contribution of immense amounts 
of sand and gravel, and of water from so unlimited a source, could such 
deposits have accumulated.” M. Dupont, in his “ Eeport on the Belgian 
Caves” ; M. Belgrand, in his work on “ The Paris Basin” ; Professor J. W. 
