The Geological Evidence of The Antiquity of Man

LEM

Drift with extinct

. Boucher de Per

ound also at St. A

he systematic Explorati

ame, with Bones o

n of Deposit

French Geologists to

AINING FLINT IMPLEMENTS I

se, ox, and other quadrupeds, some of extinct, others of living, species, belonging for the most part to the fauna already alluded to in the fourth chapter as characteristic of the interior of caverns. The greater part of these deposits contain flu

e geologist to resort for evidence of the antiquity of our race to the dark recesses of underground vaults and tunnels which may have served as places of refuge or sepulture to a succession of human beings and wild animals, and where floods may have confound

their recognition is the chief cause of the more favourable reception now given to the conclusions which MM. Tourna

of the drift or deposits of gravel and sand, of which fine sections were laid open from 20 to 35 feet in depth, whenever excavations were made in repairing the fortifications of Abbeville; or as often as flints were wanted for the roads, or loam for making bricks. For years previously bones of quadrupeds of the genera elephant, rhinoceros, bear, hyaena, stag, ox, horse, and others, had been collected there, and sent from time to time to Paris to be examined and named by Cuvier, who had described them in his Ossements Fossiles. A correct account of the associated flint tools and of their position was given in 1847 by M. Boucher de Perthes in his work above cited, and they were stated to occur at various depths, often 20 or 30 feet from the surface, in sand and gravel, especially in those strata which were nearly in contact with the subjacent white Chalk. But the scientific wo

cted the collection of M. Boucher de Perthes, returned home resolved to look for himself for flint tools in the gravel-pits near Amiens. There, accordingly, at a distance of about 30 miles from Abbeville, he immediately found abundance of similar flint

were executed by M. Buteux, an engineer well qualified for the task, who had written a good description of the geology of Picardy. Dr. Rigollot, in this memoir, pointed out most clearly that it was not in the vegetable soil, nor in the brick-earth with land and freshwater shells next below, but in the lower beds of coarse flint-gravel, usually 12,

NEAR TORQUAY

carried on in 1858 in Devonshire with more than usual care and scientific method. Dr. Buckland, in his celebrated work, entitled "Reliquiae Diluvianae," published in 1823, in which he treated of the organic remains contained in caves, fissures, and "diluvial gravel" in England, had given a clear statement of the results of his own original observations, and had declared that none of the human bones or stone implements met with by him in any of the caverns could be considered to be as old as the mammoth and other extinct quadrupeds. Opinions in harmony with this conclu

nd plates prepared

McEnery and Dr. Bu

. Vivian of Torquay,

unprinted manuscri

ed out of deference

f in the contempora

an antique type and

se implements from

e posthumous work

sely in form and

le impl

Man from undisturbed loam or clay, under stalagmite, mingled with the remains of extinct animals, and that all these must have been introduced "before the stalagmite flooring had been formed." He maintained that such facts could not be e

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Miss Burdett-Coutts contributed liberally towards the same object. A committee of geologists was charged with the investigations, among whom Dr. Falconer and Mr. Prestwich took a prominent part, visiting Torquay while the excavations were in progress. Mr. Pengelly, another member of the committee, well qualified for the task by nearly twenty years' previous experience in cave explorations, zealously di

uth are fissures connected with the vertical dislocation of the rocks, while another set, running nearly east and west, are tunnels, which have the appearance of having been to a great extent hollowed out by the action of running water. The central or main entrance, leading to what is called the "reindeer gallery," because a perfect antler of that animal was found sticking in the stalagmitic floor, is 95 feet above the level of the sea, being also 78 above the bottom of the adjoining valley. The united

1 to 15 inches, which sometimes contained bones, such as the reinde

n ochreous red colour, with angular stones and

was everywhere removed so long as the tunnels which narrowed downwards were

ros tichorhinus; Ursus spelaeus; Hyaena spelaea; Felis spelaea, or the cave-lion; Cervus tarand

being sometimes met with in tumuli posterior in date to the era of the introduction of bronze. But the contemporaneity of those at Brixham with the extinct animals is demonstrated not only by the occurrence at one point in overlying stalagmite of the bone of a cave-bear, but also by the discovery at the same level in the bone-earth, and in close proximity to a very perfect flint tool, of the entire left hind-leg of a cave-bear. This specimen, which was shown me by Dr. Falconer and Mr. Pengelly, was exhumed from the earthy deposit in the reindeer gallery, near its junction with the flint-knife gallery, at the distance of about sixty-five feet from the main entrance. The mass of earth

e Ursus spelaeus, before cited, as found in a floor of stalagmite, that the bear lived after the

ies above described. Some worn pebbles of haematite, in particular, can only have come from their nearest parent rock, at a period when the valleys immediately adjoining the caves were much shallower than they now are. The reddish loam in which the bones are embedded is such as may be seen on the surface of limestone in the neighbourhood, but the

ologist" volume

in fine mud and bones, no superficial crust of stalagmite. In some passages, as before stated, stalagmite was wanting, while in one place seven or eight alternations of stalagmite and loam we

causes above explained, the order of superposition would be constant, yet we could not be sure that

atively to the extinct mammalia might have been questioned. No coprolites were found in the Brixham excavations, and very few gnawed bones. These few may have been brought from some distance befor

he Somme. This he accordingly accomplished, in company with Mr. John Evans [Note 13], of the Society of Antiquaries, and, before his return that same year, succeeded in dissipating all doubts from the minds of his geological friends by extracting, with his own hands, from a bed of undisturbed gravel, at St. Acheul, a well-shaped flint hatchet. This implement was buried in the gravel at a

eedings of the Roya

cal Transac

he drift and its organic remains. His report, therefore, to the Royal Society, accompanied by a photograph showing the position of the flint tool in situ before it was removed from its matrix, not only satisfied many inquirers, but induced others to visit Abbeville and Amiens; and one of these, Mr. Flower, who accompanie

al of the Geologica

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ken out while I was present, though I did not see it before it had fallen from the matrix. I expressed my opinion in

f British Associ

diately betook himself to St. Acheul, commissioned by the municipality of Rouen, and did not qu

d'Histoire Naturell

3

ngle instant, and to satisfy oneself by actual inspection whether the hatchets were found in situ. I caused a deep excavation to be made, and found nine hatchets, most distin

" September 26 and

ch's visit to St. Acheul, seen the sections at Abbeville and Amiens, and had come to the opinion that the hatchets were imbedded in the "lower diluvium," and that the

n" volume 1

also, that Mr. Frere had, so long ago as 1797, found flint weapons, of the same type as those of Amiens, in a freshwater formation in Suffolk, in conjunction with elephant remains; and nearly a hund

new and startling fact is brought to light in science, people first say, 'it is not tru

one through these three phases in the progress of every scientific truth towards acceptance. But the grounds of this belief have not yet been fully laid before th