280 
^lE. PEESTWICH OX ELIXT-lilPLEIilEXTS 
by M. DE Peethes’ discoveries, ascertained that similar flint-implements were often found 
in a bed of gravel at St. Acheul near that city. He, also, after careful inquiry, expressed 
his conviction that the ground was undisturbed, and that these works of man were con- 
temporaneous with the remains of the associated extiuct animals. His paper contains 
an interesting account of the pits, with careful sections and good drawings of the worked 
flints, and the geological questions are more fully discussed. 
These observations did not, however, attract the attention they deserved, and, with 
few exceptions, the discovery of M. Bouchee de Peethes remained unknown to. or was 
considered inconclusive by, antiquaries and geologists both in France and England. 
The question was in this state when attention was again directed to it by the eminent 
palaeontologist Dr. Falconee^, and received especially a fresh impulse by his discovery 
of flint-implements associated with the bones of extinct animals in Brixham Cave, — then in 
course of exploration at his instigation under the auspices of the Eoyal Society, — a fact 
announced by Mr. Pengellt to the British Association in 1858. As the report on this 
important inquiry has not yet been presented to the Eoyal Society, I now merely mention 
this fact, to instance the weight such evidence, so carefully worked out, had in modifying 
previously received and generally entertained views, and in inciting fuidher research. 
It was not, however, until I had myself witnessed the conditions under which these 
flint-implements had been found at Brixham, that I became fully impressed with the 
validity of the doubts thrown upon the previously prevailing opinions •v\ith respect to 
such remains in caves. At the same time, although I now felt more satisfied, from the 
strength of the concurrent testimony and from my own observation, that these works of 
man did actually occur in true association with the remains of extinct mammalia in 
ground not artificially disturbed, still a doubt was left on my mind as to their contem- 
poraneity. For let us suppose, first, a cave into which the bones of the extinct animals 
were introduced and imbedded in the red clay or loam ; secondly, that the mass was 
then sealed up, as it were, by a layer of stalagmite; thhdly, that man afterwards 
frequented the cave, strewing the stalagmitic floor vrith his works. If, then, from any 
natural cause,-— such for example as earthquake movements, the influx of a body of 
water, or any other cause tending to disturb the cave, — the stalagmite floor became 
broken up and the whole ground moved afresh, we might have the remahis of the two 
periods commingled and covered up in process of time by a Eesh coating of stalagmite. 
I would not offer this as a sufficient explanation in many casesf ; but that it is a possible 
* Dr. Ealconee’s important researches in Sicily during the ^Yinter of 1858-59 still fui’ther stimulated 
inquiry. In a communication made to the Geological Society on the 4th of May 1859, an account is given 
of the “ Grotta di Maccagnone” near Palermo, in -which, besides an abundance of the remains of the 
Hippopotamus and Elephant, mixed with recent species of Helix, Dr. Paicoxee announced the discoA'ery, 
in portions of the same bone breccia, of small flint-implements resembhng in form the obsidian knives 
from Mexico and the flint knives found in the old harrows of this country. — Quai’t. Journ. Geol. Soc. 
vol. xvi. p. 99. 
t For another explanation see Mr. Babbage’s " Observations on the Discovery in various Localities of 
the Eemains of Human Art mixed with the Bones of Extinct Eaces of Animals,” Proceedings of the Eoyal 
Society, May 1859, vol. x. p. 59. 
