49 
the present time. But, when I see these implements of other nations, 1 find 
that they arc not like the flints before us, and consequently, to my mind, the 
evidence fails there. Of the accepted drift implements. Professor Hughes 
says: — ‘‘We refer them to a certain date by their known association.” 
I presume he meant by that their association with certain extinct 
mammals. I have brought a portion of a bone of one of these extinct 
mammals, which 1 took out of the gravel along with certain of these so-called 
implements. It would appear that in the Broom pit, from which these 
specimens were taken up to two years ago no bones whatever were found. 
Therefore, if the association with similar remains is one point of the argument, 
that point does not hold here. I should say of the fractured flints before 
me, — none of them evidence the work of human hands. 
Mr. W. GnimTH. — Notwithstanding the pleadings of the lecturer, I feel 
inclined to follow the example of Lord Eldon, and to doubt. The paper before 
us has been prepared with great care, and I think the arguments used are 
arguments of great plausibility. It is not many weeks since, in this very 
room, the opposite opinion was advocated, and, therefore, when we hear 
doctors disagreeing, we may well feel a little difficulty ourselves as to the 
conclusions we ought to adopt. But it appears to me that the question 
involved may be regarded in this way : the stones before us may or may 
not display human handiwork, but that is altogether apart from or pre- 
liminary to the theory sought to be established, as to the connexion 
of the stone implements with the earliest history of mankind. A most 
interesting conclusion was drawn from these implements a few weeks 
since, namely, that man was not of the same species as the ordinary brute 
creation, because these implements showed him to have been possessed of 
reason and social qualities which distinguished him altogether from the lower 
animals. I think, therefore, that, if we could satisfy our minds that these 
implements were of the early date which some assign to them, we should be 
establishing a very interesting fact in connexion with the human race, — one 
tending to show that the doctrine of development is not so surely founded 
in fact as some people imagine. This being so, it seems to come 
to this : what is the evidence for the two sides of the question ? I do not 
altogether agree with the writer of the present paper in the view he has put 
forth with regard to the glacial period. He speaks of it as a period long 
since passed away ; as a pre-historic period, before the appearance of man. 
But what does the present time give us ? A glacial period still exists in the 
northern regions, which are constantly under the action of frost and covered 
with snow and ice ; and glaciers are still working out the same process 
they are supposed to have worked centuries ago in the earlier periods of the 
earth’s history. I think that, when we talk of the glacial period as something 
that has passed away, we are going somewhat beyond the fact, because it 
exists at the present moment to a certain extent. The remarks made by 
Dr. Golan, who has travelled so far in those northern regions, certainly seem 
very pertinent to the question before us. He has told us that in that part of 
the earth where the glacial period still exists, the Esquimaux are forced by 
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