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 of M. de Perthes have at length aroused the attention of English men of science, and during 1859 a number of eminent gentlemen—­among them Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Prestwich, Dr. Falconer, and others—­visited M. Perthes’s collection, and saw the flints in situ.  Several of them have avowed their conviction of the genuineness and antiquity of these relics.  Sir Charles Lyell has given a guarded sanction to the belief that they present one strong proof of a remote human antiquity.

The objections that would naturally be made to this evidence are, that the flints are purely natural formations, and not works of man,—­that the deposit is alluvial and modern, rather than of the ancient drift,—­or that these implements had been dropped into crevices, or sunk from above, in later periods.

The testimony of disinterested observers seems to be sufficient as to the human contrivance manifest in these flints; and the concurrence of various scientific men hardly leaves room for doubt that these deposits are of great antiquity, preceding the time in which the surface of France took its present form, and dating back to what is called the Post-Pliocene Period.  Their horizontal position, and the great depth at which the hatchets are found, together with their number, and the peculiar incrustation and discoloration of each one, as well as their being in company with the bones of the extinct mammalia, make it improbable that they could have been dropped into fissures or sunk there in modern times.[D] In regard to the absence of human bones, it should be remembered that no bones are easily preserved, unless they are buried in sediment or in bog; and furthermore, that the extent of the researches in these formations is very small indeed.  Besides, the country where above all we should expect the most of human remains in the drift-deposits, as being probably the most ancient abode of man,—­Asia,—­has been the least explored for such purposes.  Still this is without doubt the weak point in the evidence, as proving human antiquity.