of these superficial beds of drift, and as exemplifying the changes which the fauna of this region has undergone since man appeared among its occupants; and also to the antiquary, as furnishing the earliest relics of the human race with which he can hope to become acquainted relics of tribes of apparently so remote a period, that—
Antiquity appears to have begun
Long after their primeval race was run.
But beyond the limited circle of those peculiarly interested in geology or archæology, this discovery will claim the especial attention of all who, whether on ethnological, philological, or theological grounds, are interested in the great question of the antiquity of man upon the earth.
It is, however, mainly from the antiquarian point of view that I intend now to regard it, though, for the better elucidation of the circumstances under which these implements have been found, it will be necessary to enter into various geological details.
It is now some years since a distinguished French antiquary, M. Boucher de Perthes, in his work, entitled, "Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes,"[1] called attention to the discovery of flint implements fashioned by the hand of man in the pits worked for sand and gravel in the neighbourhood of Abbeville, in such positions, and at such a depth below the surface of the ground, as to force upon him the conclusion that they were found in the very spots in which they had been deposited at the period of the formation of the beds containing them. The announcement by M. Boucher de Perthes, of his having discovered these flint implements under such remarkable circumstances was, however, accompanied by an account of the finding of many other forms of flint of a much more questionable character, and by the enunciation of theories which by many may have been considered as founded upon too small a basis of ascertained facts. It is probably owing to this cause that, neither in France nor in this country, did the less disputable and now completely substantiated discoveries of M. de Perthes receive from men of science in former years the attention to which they were justly entitled.
The question whether man had or had not coexisted with the extinct pachydermatous and other mammals, whose bones are so frequently found in the more recent geological deposits, had indeed already more than once been brought under
- ↑ Paris, 8vo. vol. i. 1847, (printed in 1844-6,) vol. ii. 1857.
