356 
Dawson, and many others, take the same view. Whatever else may be 
true, there is no doubt about the flood.* 
There are ancient beaches on the great lakes of North America, showing 
that the water formerly stood in these basins at a much higher level. The 
beaches are Post-glacial in date. Has the water in these lakes excavated 
these basins ? 
4» 
REMARKS BY N. WHITLEY, ESQ., C.E. 
I consider the paper of Professor Hughes to be of especial value and 
importance at the present time, in clearing the study of the evidence of the 
early advent of man of a number of doubtful cases which have for many years 
surrounded this subject with a haze of uncertainty, and which required a 
considerable amount of research and labour to clear away. This has now been 
done, and for which our warmest thanks and grateful acknowledgments are 
due to the learned Professor. 
The result being, as the evidence at present stands, that in all cases where 
it has been attempted to assign to man a period more remote than that of 
the Post-glacial river gravels the evidence has completely broken down, and 
that man is neither Pre-glacial, nor Inter-glacial, but Post-glacial. 
Professor Hughes is further of opinion that the earliest traces of man are 
to be found in the old “river gravels” of the Somme, and in similar deposits, 
consisting of numerous stone implements of human workmanship. Around 
the point of the genuineness of these supposed implements, therefore, the 
interest of the controversy now centres. 
It is important further to notice that no other relies of man are mentioned 
by him as being found in these gravels except the so-called implements ; and 
that in these beds the bones of the extinct animals have been found in great 
abundance, but not a single bone of man, or any other relic indicative of his 
presence has been discovered associated with them. 
It is a matter of regret that the author has considered it unnecessary to 
produce any evidence that these fractured flints are really of human workman- 
ship, as this is in fact, now the issue of the whole contentiou ; but on this 
vital point we are referred in a foot-note to Dr. Evans’ Ancient Stone Imple- 
ments of Great Britain. 
Turning to Dr. Evans’ elaborate work, I find no proof whatever given 
* Below Richmond, far down the river, the Jurassic is exposed in the 
river-bluffs, overlaid by the Tertiary and Quaternary deposits. In this 
J urassic is a heavy bed of rolled gravel, composed of the same up-country 
rocks as the Quaternary bed ; which shows that these great floods of fresh 
water were not confined to the Quaternary period. There were a river and 
a river-valley here in the Jurassic (or Trinssic ?) period. 
