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workmanship, and entitled spearheads, arrowheads, and 
knives ; and that by similar pressure such forces of nature as 
the planing, rasping, and crushing power of a deep mantle of 
land ice pushing its tortuous way to the sea would produce all 
the forms of flakes and cores that we actually find. They 
point again to the fact that these so-called tools are found in 
such abundance in some districts that, if the theory be main- 
tained that they are implements lost by hunters, the ratio of 
lost axes to the savage population must have been as six 
millions to one. They point once more to the fact that with 
these implements found in the drift no relics of man are 
found — not a shred of his clothing, not a fragment of his 
pottery, not a trace of his abode, not a vestige of his habits 
and pursuits, not a bone of his frame ; and therefore that it 
would not be easy to find a case in which so large a super- 
structure had been built on so slender a foundation. 
(b) As, however, there are those who contend that some at 
least among these flints have been formed by man, we will 
concede the first premiss, and admit for arguments sake that 
they are artificial, and further also admit that they are coeval 
with the drift in which they are imbedded. The second pre- 
miss, however — viz., that myriads of ages have elapsed since 
the deposit of the drift — is scientifically unproven. If by the 
term “ drift ” we indicate all those deposits of gravel and mud 
which have taken place since the glacial period, and which 
cover what may be called the human period, we shall find the 
utmost divergence of opinion as to the time in question. Sir 
Charles Ly ell contends that the glacial period must be reckoned 
at 800,000 years ago. Sir John Lubbock is contented with 
200,000, M. Adhemar with 11,120, whilst Professor Andrewes 
contends the ice age ended barely 8,000 years ago. And, as 
the answers are unsatisfactory, so the modes of computation 
and the evidences adduced are superficial. The application of 
the law of averages as applied by Lyell has been admirably 
exposed by Professor Birks in his pamphlet on “ Modern 
Geogonies,” and a folio might be filled with the histories of 
the discoveries that have covered the finders with ridicule. 
The human jaw of Abbeville was. Dr. Carpenter bears witness, 
a successful “ plant .” The pottery found by Horner in the 
Nile deposit, and on which an extended chronology was 
founded admitting no error, no fraud, was proved of no 
geological value, when Roman pottery was found at even 
lower depths. That the remains of man have been found with 
the bones of extinct animals is readily admitted ; but “ this 
does not seem,” says Prestwich, “ to necessitate the carrying 
of man back in past time so much as the bringing forward of 
