n is a very ancient denizen of these regions. It has been proved
that the whole 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, 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 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 that layer tells a wonderful history. It is full of
stumps of trees standing as they grew. Fir-trees are there with their
cones, and hazel-bushes with their nuts; there stand the stools of oak
and yew trees, beeches and alders. Hence this stratum is appropriate