30 
AID RENDERED BY PHOTOGRAPHY TO GEOLOGY. 
to equally convince others; so, fetching a photographer, several 
capital negatives were secured, showing the tool still embedded 
in the strata, and showing also, what was equally important, 
that there were no signs of any vertical rents, breaks, or any 
disturbances whatever in the overlying beds of sand and loam, 
which, indeed, contained many fresh water shells, and had, 
evidently, never been disturbed since they were deposited, 
long ages ago, by the River Somme. 
The photographs so secured were presented to the Royal 
Society with the talented geologist’s report, and carried con¬ 
viction to many minds, so that many other inquirers visited 
St. Acheul, including Mr. James Wyatt, who, on his return to 
England, set to work and succeeded in finding precisely 
similar specimens in the gravels of the Ouse at Bedford. 
The enormous period of time for which man has been an 
inhabitant of this earth is now clearly recognised, and no 
small share in the obtaining of this speedy recognition is due 
to Mr. Prestwich’s photographs. 
The second instance to which I refer was connected with 
the discovery of Dr. Riviere, of a skeleton of one of the early 
men by whom the stone tools were fashioned and used, and 
who were undoubtedly ignorant of the use of metals. It is 
singular that the bones of these early races of mankind should 
be so scarce ; their weapons we find in plenty, but of their 
bones hardly a trace. It was, therefore, a grand event when 
Dr. Riviere came across a complete skeleton of a palaeolithic 
(or early stone-age) man in a cave near Mentone, in the south 
of France, in March, 1872. He had been excavating in a 
shallow hollow in the rocks, when he found the bones of a 
human foot, and this encouraged him to excavate the cavern, 
which proved to be of great extent; forty-five feet in length— 
running north to south, opening towards the south—and of 
great height. The skeleton lay at a depth of seventeen feet, 
and was twenty-four feet from the entrance ; surrounding it and 
above it were fifty rude flint flakes, or scrapers, with many 
bones of animals, some of extinct species, but no trace of 
metal, pottery, or polished stone. The bones were those of a 
man five feet nine inches in height; the skull was of a red 
colour, and was covered with a chaplet of perforated shells 
and teeth of stags. There the skeleton lay, a grand sight for 
the geologist, or the student of pre-liistoric man. But how 
to preserve a record of its exact disposition and appearance, a 
thing especially important, as the manner in which the body 
was laid out for interment—whether on the back or side, out¬ 
stretched, or with the knees drawn up—is one of the char¬ 
acteristics by which its probable antiquity may be determined. 
