duration of that
epoch.

You will have heard of the interesting discoveries recently made, in
various parts of Western Europe, of flint implements, obviously worked
into shape by human hands, under circumstances which show conclusively
that man is a very ancient denizen of these regions.

It has been proved that the old populations of Europe, whose existence
has been revealed to us in this way, consisted of savages, such as the
Esquimaux are now; that, in the country which is now France, they hunted
the reindeer, and were familiar with the ways of the mammoth and the
bison. The physical geography of France was in those days different from
what it is now--the river Somme,[69] for instance, having cut its bed
a hundred feet deeper between that time and this; and, it is probable,
that the climate was more like that of Canada or Siberia, than that of
Western Europe.

The existence of these people is forgotten even in the traditions of
the oldest historical nations. The name and fame of them had utterly
vanished until a few years back; and the amount of physical change which
has been effected since their day, renders it more than probable that,
venerable as are some of the historical nations, the workers of the
chipped flints of Hoxne or of Amiens [70] are to them, as they are to
us, in point of antiquity.

But, if we assign to these hoar relics of long-vanished generations of
men the greatest age that can possibly be claimed for them, they are
not older than the drift, or boulder clay, which, in comparison with the
chalk, is but a very juvenile deposit. You need go no further than your
own sea-board for evidence of this fact. At one of the most charming
spots on the coast of Norfolk, Cromer, you will see the boulder clay
forming a vast mass, which lies upon the chalk, and must consequently
have come into existence after it. Huge boulders of chalk are, in fact,
included in the clay, and have evidently been brought to the position
they now occupy, by the same agency as that which has planted blocks of
syenite from Norway side by side with them.

The chalk, then, is certainly older than the boulder clay. If you ask
how much, I will again take you no further than the same spot upon your
own coasts for evidence. I have spoken of the boulder clay and drift as
resting upon the chalk. That is not strictly true. Interposed between
the chalk and the drift is a comparatively insignificant layer,
containing vegetable matter. But