require the supposition of a
great lapse of time."

An independent proof of the age of these gravel-beds and the associated
loam, containing fossil remains, is derived by the same authority from
the large deposits of peat in the valley of the Somme, which contain not
only monuments of the Roman, but also those of an older, stone period,
the Finnic period; yet, says Lord Wrottesley, "distinguished geologists
are of opinion that the growth of all the vegetable matter, and even
the original scooping out of the hollows containing it, are events long
posterior in date to the gravel with flint-implements,--nay, posterior
even to the formation of the uppermost of the layers of loam with
fresh-water shells overlaying the gravel."

The number of the flint implements is computed at above fourteen hundred
in an area of fourteen miles in length and half a mile in breadth. They
are of the rudest nature, as if formed by a people in the most degraded
state of barbarism. Some are mere flakes of flint, apparently used for
knives or arrow-heads; some are pointed and with hollowed bases, as if
for spear-heads, varying from four to nine inches in length; some are
almond-shaped, with a cutting edge, from two to nine inches in length.
Others again are fashioned into coarse representations of animals, such
as the whale, saurian, boar, eagle, fish, and even the human profile;
others have representations of foliage upon them; others are either
drilled with holes or are cut with reference to natural holes, so as to
serve as stones for slings, or for amulets, or for ornaments. The edges
in many cases seem formed by a great number of small artificial tips
or blows, and do not at all resemble edges made by a great natural
fracture. Very few are found with polished surfaces like the modern
remains in flint; and the whole workmanship differs from that of flint
arrow-heads in other parts of Europe, as well as from the later Finnish
(or so-called Keltic) remains, discovered in such quantities in France.
The only relics that have been found resembling them are, according to
Mr. Worsaae, some flint arrow-heads and spear-points discovered at great
depths in the bogs of Denmark. A few bone knives and necklaces of bone
have been met with in these deposits, but thus far no human bones. The
people who fabricated these instruments seemed to be a hunting and
fishing people, living in some such condition as the present savages of
Australia.

These discoveries