The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1882-10-11


ern France. The river, at that time,
evidently ran at this higher level. The
present stream is about so feet wide ;
the ancient river, when the people of the
First Stone Age lived on its banks must
have been mile and half or two miles
wide. 1t was at the close Of the great
Ice Age; and, with an unusual rainfall,
and the melting SHOWS (the sea also stand
ing at a higher level, and backing its
water far up the valley), the Somme was
then very different stream from what
it is now. You will see the correspond
ing gravels exposed anywhere around
Richmond In the street cuttings and the
railway cuttings-and James river at
that time was at least six or eight miles
wide above Richmond.
Similar implements are found at Ami
ems and here around Paris in the valley
of the Seine, as also in the Thames
valley at London.
There are abundant evidences that the
Mississippi and the other rivers of Amer
lea at the same period ran at much higher
levels than they do now, and the same is
true in India and in all the river valleys
OF Central and Southern Europe. But it
is not true that the relics of man of the
same date are found in the north of Eu-
rope-that is to say, in north Germany,
Scandinavia, Scotland, and Ireland.-
There the oldest human remains belong
to the Polished or Second Stone Age.
1H'S IS a most pregnant fact IN friag the
date of these mighty~t7ood Man was
kept out of the northern regions at this
time by the SHOWS and ice and submerged
lands of that part of the continent. We
know positively that that part of Europe
was never inhabited until the Polished
Stone Age, and we know farther by the
general consent of psychologists that the
Polished Stone Age does not date farther
back than few thousand years. We
know, in other words, that man did not
live In Scotland or Denmark farther back
than some two or three thousand years
before our era The presumption is ire
slstible that it was about this time that
he lived in the Somme valley-or, rather,
he lived here short time previous to his
advance farther north. All the stone
implements found in Ireland, Scotland,
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, belong to
the Polished Stone Age. There is an
other pregnant fact: the bones of the
great extinct animals (the mammoth,
rhinoceros, cave-bear, etc.)-which are
found In association with the river gravel
nipple ments of the south-fail in the
caves and river-gravels of the north.
These animals Qhke MANI were kept out
of the northerly regions by the ice and
the cold. We thus, as we have said, fix
the date of the close of the Glacial epoch
and the great post-glacial foods.
Boucher de Perthes was a wealthy
man, and he has left at Abbeville a
splendid museum Con which he expended
100000 francs), containing hundreds of
specimens of the stone implements which
he found in the river-gravels, and innu-
merable objects of the Celtic, Roman,
Gallo Roman, and Medieval ages, which
he found in the peat.
At Amiens (twenty- eight miles up the
river from Abbeville) I also visited the
gravel-pits, where similar remains have
been found. At st. Acheul, on one of
the hills on the outer limits of the city,
many Of these axes have been found and
above the gravel Cat the depth of about
six feet) they have found number of
Roman graves, with stone collins. AS I
stood in the street conversing with Mr..
LANCE, an English gentleman, who re-
sides at this spot, he remarked to our
party, You are standing now on, per-
haps, the Oldest Roman road in France.
This is the site Of the old Roman road,
constructed in the year B. O. Is, which
ran from this place to Boulogne." He
had in his house objects which had come
from the Roman graves, few rods off.
One Of them touched us all good deal
it was the fnger-bone of Roman lady,
and on it was blackened, bent metal