of diluvium, the one red and superficial, characterized by its irregular and but little rolled flints; the second, deep, of grey colour, the round flints of which have been strongly rolled. These two strata, each several meters in thickness, are separated by a layer of lacustral deposits, containing fresh-water shells, and which has sometimes a thickness of five meters. Now it is exactly in the grey or inferior diluvium, immediately beneath the tertiary formations, that the remains of human industry have been found associated with the fossil bones of the mammoth and rhinoceros. Thus, after the first diluvial epoch, which gives us the first date of humanity, there was a longer period of repose during which fresh-water lakes were formed above the inferior diluvium; a second geological change then induced the formation of the superior diluvium; at a later period, the conditions changed again, and a thick layer of loess re-covered the flints of the second diluvial period; and finally, a new order of things took place, during which, the recent terrains were formed above the loess. It follows thus, that since the hand of man fashioned the flints of the valley of the Somme, the geological conditions have changed not less than four times, and the duration of these successive periods is truly incalculable. It is remarkable that, whilst the remains of human industry are so over abundant in the inferior diluvium, there is no trace of them in the layers which separate this diluvium from the vegetable soil; man excluded from these parts by the accumulation of lacustral waters, could only reappear there at a relatively very recent period, after the extinction of the large animals, which he formerly combated, after the fusion of the glaciers to which M. Delanoue is inclined to ascribe the loess formation. During this long glacial period, of which Mr. Ch. Martens has given you so clear and learned a description, a large portion of Europe became gradually covered with ice, and many species unable to defend themselves against the cold perished, whilst man, by his industry and intelligence, contrived to escape this wholesale destruction. By striking flint against flint, to fashion his primitive weapons, man perceived the rising sparks, he learned to retain them, and the fire first kindled for his rude feasts, became afterwards his protection against the inclemency of a glacial climate.

We possess at present but one testimony as regards the existence of man at the period of the extension of the glaciers, which gives at the same time evidence that he then possessed the use of fire.

The soil in Sweden is at present in several regions the seat of a gradual upheaving, whilst in other regions it gradually sinks, and these imperceptible oscillations had already commenced before the

glacial period. Large tracts, formerly inhabited, disappeared beneath the waters of the Baltic, the sea had covered them with sand and shell banks; large floating islands detached from the glaciers of the Scandinavian Alps ran aground upon these shoals. When now the time arrived for the fusion of the glaciers, the erratic blocks which they had transported sank to the bottom, and the waters again covered its banks with shells. Then the soil so long submerged again began to rise. The erratic blocks first rose above the level of the sea, after them appeared the shell-banks, then the sand-banks, and finally, the primitive soil emerged in turn after a period of submersion of which it is impossible to estimate the duration.

How much time was not required before this region emerged from the sea could have become habitable, before the thick shroud of sand which rendered the surface sterile, was covered with humus, in order that man should find his means of subsistence, have prospered and multiplied beyond measure, so that Scanzia was called by the ancients the great workshop of peoples, Scanzia officina gentium (Jornandès)! And nevertheless, this period is very short compared with that which has elapsed from the commencement of the glacial period to the fusion of the ice. M. C. Martens has told you how the glaciers are formed and how they disappear. It is not an excessive cold which produces them; the conditions in which they formerly were formed in regions now temperate did not much differ from those which surround us. If they finished by invading the greater part of Europe, it was only at the end of a multitude of centuries, and they retired as slowly.

Well, then, man has witnessed successively these two changes of our hemisphere; he receded step by step before the advancing glaciers, until their retirement rendered to him gradually his ancient domain, though rent and torn up. In digging a canal in the vicinity of Stockholm one of the eminences, which are named osars, and which at the glacial period were by the floating ice deposited upon the submerged plains of Sweden, was cut through. There, beneath an enormous mass of erratic blocks, and below the sand and shell banks, at a depth of eighteen meters, was found a circular range of stones, forming a fireplace, in the midst of which there was charcoal. What hand was it that collected those stones, and kindled that fire, unless it was the hand of man? Man then existed before that long series of phenomena described by M. Charles Martens; and yet that date, so immensely remote, is but the second date of humanity. The first is that of the diluvium, and everything

induces the belief that it is more remote from the second, than the second is from the present period. To these irrefutable proofs of the antiquity of man, others may be joined which have for a long time been discarded by prejudiced minds, but the value of which you have always recognized. Frequently, both in Europe and in America, human bones, implements made of flint, bones, or stag horn, cinders and charcoal, have been found in caverns, mixed with the remains of animals of the quaternary period. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire has justly observed that if the bones of any other animal than those of man had been found under similar circumstances no one would have dreamt to deny their antiquity. But he adds, as the co-existence of man with the extinct animals could not be admitted without undermining a doctrine so deeply rooted in science, as well as in theology, the mind was tortured to find reasons for non-acceptance; and the most various and sometimes extremely improbable hypotheses were imagined, to explain how these human bones were subsequently transported into these caverns. This was the opinion three years ago of the illustrious colleague whom we have lost. A few days after he showed us a staghorn arrow, found by M. Alfred Fontan in a cavern, where also two human teeth and the remains of several extinct animals were found. This arrow, notched at the edges, presented upon one of the surfaces little grooves, probably as M. Lartet supposes for the reception of poison. This fact, accepted by so cautious an observer as M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, by so expert a geologist as M. Lartet, has greatly struck you; and when afterwards you heard of the human skulls found by M. Schmerling and M. Spring, in the caverns about Liège, of those found by Mr. Aymard in the osseous breccia of Mont Denise, of those found by M. Lund in the caverns of America, you evinced no incredulity; but you would perhaps have evinced greater hesitation if the discovery of M. Boucher de Perthes had not previously prepared you for accepting these multiplied evidences in favour of the antiquity of man. It must be confessed that the prejudices prevalent some years since, among all classes, and even among scientific men, were of such a nature that they could only be removed by an accumulation of evidence.

In order to remove these prejudices it was not sufficient to show that human remains are frequently intermixed with the bones of socalled antediluvian animals; for it was objected that man might have entered the osseous caverns long after the extinction of these animals; that ferocious beasts, subterraneous currents might subsequently have imported fragments of his skeleton, or that they might have been

introduced by crevices; and when it was shown that, applied to some special cases, all these interpretations were false, there remained yet that intangible objection, that some unknown cause may have disturbed the soil of the caverns. A question thus put could only be solved by a different mode of investigation. It was now requisite to search for the traces of man no longer in caverns, of which the evidence was rejected, nor in the osseous breccia, but in the quaternary formations, in situ, in beds which neither were nor could have been disturbed, since they have preserved their relations with the superficial and lower strata. It was then that M. Boucher de Perthes commenced in the diluvium of the Somme those long and difficult researches of which he has given you a history, in his letter of the 17th of November, 1859.

It is in this ancient and deep bed, which has remained undisturbed for a frightfully long series of centuries, that he, and so many after him, have found the flint implements used by man in combating the monsters of another period, intermixed with the remains of the rhinoceros and the mammoth.

This time the demonstration was complete; but to render it more palpable, more striking, and to render it safe from the last objection of sceptics, a crowning proof was required; it was requisite to discover in the fossiliferous diluvium not merely the remains of man's industry but the remains of his body. None of you doubted that ultimately this final evidence would be produced. Yet years elapsed without your expectation being realized. Who was to be the happy explorer whom chance would enable to ally his name with the discovery of the fossil man? Gentlemen, there is justice sometimes in destiny; this good fortune was reserved to the man who has devoted twenty-five years of his life to the demonstration of one of the greatest truths in science, who, for a long time railed at, or what is worse, treated with contempt, had to struggle against universal prejudices, but who by his perseverance and courage received first some tardy support, until at last this depressed truth broke forth in science. M. Boucher de Perthes has the glory of having finished the edifice of which he has laid the first stone. What must have been the joy of this venerable man, when he was called upon to extract from the diluvial bed the celebrated human jaw which our learned president has some days since shown you. The clear and complete exposition of M. de Quatrefages, the history of the objections raised in London, and which have ended in the formation of an international commission, all this has produced in you a profound conviction of the authenticity of the.

fossil jaw; and you have remembered with pride that M. Boucher de Perthes has been for three years one of the six honorary members of your society.

Gentlemen, when, four years ago, some of us formed the project of founding an anthropological society, doubts were raised as to the possibility of success; we were threatened with the indifference of the public. We were, however, not discouraged, and we were right. We were then nineteen; we are now two hundred. Let us then proceed resolutely.

As for myself, gentlemen, I must apologize for having so long occupied your attention; but I cannot quit this tribune without thanking you for the honour you have done me by appointing me general secretary. You might have chosen a worthier, but not a more devoted one.

ON THE SUPPOSED INCREASING PREVALENCE OF DARK HAIR IN ENGLAND.

BY JOHN BEDDOE, M.D., F.A.S.L., &c.

FOREIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS.

Ir is the opinion of some scientific,* and of many unscientific observers, that light hair is gradually becoming less common in England. than it used to be; and, while some confine the bearing of this statement within the limits of their own lifetime and observation, others extend it to previous centuries, attaching great importance to the terms in which our Saxon, Danish, and Normant ancestors are described as having red, yellow, or other light shades of hair.

I do not wish to discuss, in the present article, the question whether this opinion has any foundation in fact. Some light might be thrown national and other portrait

upon it by a careful examination of the galleries; and I incline to think that the portraits of the worthies of the sixteenth century would lend some little support to the notion. I merely wish to point out that if the fact be so, or so far as it is so, it may be accounted for by other causes than those which have usually

* E. g. of Mrs. Somerville, Physical Geography.

+ Dr. Bird, of Swansea, informs me that the chapel of the Anglo-Norman garrison at Brecon was anciently known as "the chapel of the red haired." This is a rather striking fact, as red hair is not uncommon among the South Welsh themselves at the present day.