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of a formation once more extensive, and which probably once spread in one continuous mass over the chalk, before the present system of valleys had begun to be shaped out." (Geol. Ev. p. 106.) In the bottom of the valley, which has an average width of one mile, there is a bed of gravel (1) from three to fourteen feet thick, and upon this, separated by a thin layer of impervious clay, a growth of peat (2) from ten to thirty feet in depth, through which the river now flows (c). Upon the sides of the valley (3 and 4) are beds of gravel, resembling ancient river banks, the lower one but little above the peat, the upper from eighty to a hundred feet higher. In these gravel beds are found the bones of numerous animals of races now extinct, such as the elephant, the rhinoceros, the horse, ox, deer, tiger, hyena, and others, and, mingled with these, various tools of flint, supposed to have been used for hatchets, spear-heads, knives, etc.

The geological history of this valley is assumed to have been as follows: Originally the chalk formation was continuous, filling the entire space. In some way a stream of water began to flow across this formation, by which the chalk was gradually worn away to the level of the upper gravel beds (4), and of a width equal to the present breadth of the valley at that level. Here the process was for a

time arrested, and the gravel bed, formed of the insoluble materials not carried away, settled itself in the then bottom of the valley, reaching, of course, from side to side. During this period lived and died the animals above named, and their remains were mingled and imbedded in the alluvium of the stream. At the same time, some of the primitive race of men lived there, who, not knowing the use of iron, fashioned for themselves rude instruments out of the flints once contained in the chalk formation, which they used for defense, and hunting, and for digging canoes, building huts, and the like; which implements, also, as they became worn or lost, were buried in the earth, along with the remains of the animals that perished there. After a long period, owing, probably, to an elevation of the land, the process of washing away was resumed, and the valley was further excavated to the level of the lower gravel beds (3), leaving behind the traces of the earlier alluvium, as we now find them. Then

a like period of repose, followed by similar results, gave rise to the lower beds. Still another elevation caused a further scooping out of the valley to its present depth, leaving it filled with the bottom bed of gravel, which still remains. Upon this have since accumulated the vegetable remains which have covered it with a bed of peat in some places more than thirty feet in thickness.

In the facts and theory thus succinctly stated are found the data on which is based the remote antiquity of our race. The argument is twofold; first, from the intermixture of the flint implements with the animal remains, showing that the men who fashioned and used the former were contemporaneous with the latter, and secondly, from the immense periods of time necessary to the geological changes described. We may consider these two classes of proof separately.

First does the association of human remains with those of animals now extinct, prove that they existed contemporaneously in a former geological period? On this point I can not claim to advance an independent opinion of my own of any value, neither have I room for the details of this argument. I shall content myself with citing the testimony of savants who, if any, are competent to speak concerning it, and whose names are at least. equal in weight with those of any who have spoken on the other side.

Professor H. D. Rogers sums up the evidence in reference to this question as follows:

"The argument which we erect upon all these manifest indications of turbulent action in the waters which left this very promiscuous deposit is, that by pointing to an agency an incursion, we mean, of the by no means dis

tant ocean

- perfectly capable of invading the dry land within historic times, and mixing up its more recent surface objects with previously buried relics of an earlier or pre-historic epoch, we are debarred from assuming that the two classes of monuments were coeval, and that from the imputed age of the one we are to infer the antiquity of the other. This is what those do who view all the surface drifts as but one formation, pointing to but one date, calling it the Diluvium. We pray the reader to observe that it is far from our meaning here that we can disprove the contemporaneousness of the flint-shaping men and the great antediluvian quadrupeds. We only assert, but assert confidently, that the phenomena utterly fail to prove it. The burden of the case is with those who, treating the Diluvium as one and indivisible in the mode of formation, and in date, accept the mere fact of present association in it as evidence of co-existence in time. If, therefore, it can be shown, on an interpretation of geology in accordance with sound physical principles, that a redressing of the deposit may have taken place, the verdict must be, that this co-existence in time is not established, and the antediluvian antiquity of man must be cast out of the high court of science with a verdict of Not Proven."*

But it is not necessary to insist upon this negative conclusion. Let it be conceded that man was contemporaneous with those ancient quadrupeds, the

* Blackwood's Mag., Oct., 1860, p. 430, Am. ed.

question of their actual date remains still undeter mined. Says a writer in the Westminster Review for April, 1863, who is evidently an able geologist and an ardent advocate of the doctrine of man's remote antiquity,

"Regarding the contemporaneousness of man with the great extinct Pachyderms as fully proved by the facts and reasonings already adduced, we have now to inquire how this contemporaneousness is to be accounted for; whether by affirming the prolonged existence of these mammals into the human period, as ordinarily understood, or by antedating the commencement of the human period so as to place it in some part of what has been designated the Post-pliocene, as distinguished from the Recent epoch. The acceptance of the former solution might be justified by the unquestionable fact that the existence of the Bos Primogenius was prolonged even into the historic period, and seems favored by the preservation of the carcasses of the mammoth and rhinoceros. But it is obviously not required by either of these facts; since many species of animals, whose first introduction dates much further back in geological time, are at present contemporaneous with man; and carcasses once frozen up might be preserved for thousands of years as well as for hundreds, for millions. as well as for thousands."

That is, the mere fact that man was contemporary with those extinct animal tribes proves nothing as to his antiquity. They may have come down to

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