Besides, the primary defect of the whole prehistoric system is the indissolubly confounding of two orders of very evident facts, but which may by no means have any correlation as to time. Wrought flints show evident traces of human labor, and there is no unprejudiced person who cherishes the least doubt about it. The evidence of design shown by the examination of two or three specimens is in itself a proof of some value, but this proof makes an irresistible impression on the mind when, in addition, we see an accumulation of specimens. It is, then, no longer possible to attribute the uniform shape of the flints to a mere accident. But were they fashioned at the time of the formation of the terrains in which they are embedded? That is another problem, the solution of which is liable to controversy. Mr. Taylor, who is very respectable authority in such matters, declares, after much conscientious research, that the gravel-beds of St. Acheul were deposited in the earlier part of the Christian era. People of the historic period, such as the first inhabitants of Umbria and the Egyptians, made flints precisely like those of St. Acheul. The prodigious antiquity of man must be greatly shaken by these observations. At Sinai, flint has been used to effect immense excavations in the rock; it is again utilized under the form of hammers and chisels in the ancient copper mines of the Aztecs, in Canada, Spain, Wady-Maghara, and Bethlehem, as well as on Lake Superior, in Tuscany, and in Brittany. The Bedouins of Africa and the Indians of Texas still make use of them; and M. Reboux, who gave the Congress a practical demonstration of the mounting and use of the utensils of the stone age, received his inspiration from those savages. They make the handles out of the sinews of the bison, covered with a wide strip of the animal's skin recently taken off. This band is wound around grooves made in the middle of the hammer. The skin, as it dries, contracts, and the stone, the extremities of which alone are uncovered, is enclosed in a sheath so tight that it cannot be drawn out.[276] It must be acknowledged, then, that the authenticity of these beds at Spiennes, as prehistoric ateliers, appears exceedingly doubtful, and there is a tinge of similar incredulity in the behavior of the people around the Camp des Cayaux: “Countrymen, and even little peasant girls,” says a reporter of one of our principal journals, “were selling the finest stones to the travellers, making superhuman efforts to repress smiles that threatened to explode into loud laughter. A singularly ironic expression was legible in the large eyes of these fillettes and broke through their pretended seriousness. It was very evident that the benighted villagers in the vicinity of Mons were not sufficiently initiated into the new gospel of science, and by no means had implicit faith in it. The irreverence of the population was still more evident at the entrance of the hamlet, where a group of young women manifested quite an uncivil [pg 832] merriment at the sight of some of the princes of science who were toiling along under the heavy burden of quaternary flint.” As an example of moral contrasts, I will merely allude to Hennuyer and the peasant of Furfooz, one sceptical and contemptuous of everything, and the other with genuine respect for the traditions of his beloved valleys.
The morning of the twenty-seventh was mostly taken up with a report from General Faid'herbe on the dolmens of Algeria. A burst of applause greeted the illustrious and genial hero of Lille. Popular sentiment seemed an embodiment of the
“Placuit victrix causa diis, sed victa Catoni”
in the very teeth of the Borussians.[277]
General Faid'herbe assigned a historic epoch to the origin of the dolmens. These monuments, which are tombs, were the work of one race found on every shore from Pomerania to Tunis, and which, according to him, proceeded from the north to the south. The dolmens of Africa are like those of Europe. But what race was this? A blonde race from the shores of the Baltic, as the speaker proved by three facts: 1. Blondes are still to be found in Barbary. 2. Ancient historians speak of the blonde people who lived there before the Christian era. 3. Fifteen centuries before Christ the blonde inhabitants of that country attacked Lower Egypt. M. Faid'herbe stated that when he lived in Senegal there were two powerful negro tribes in the countries on the upper Niger having a political organization of relative advancement. The complexion of the royal family was somewhat clear, and they prided themselves on their descent from white ancestors. Etymological indices lead us to believe that this dynasty descended from the blonde race of the dolmens.
M. Worsaae opposed the general's opinion, and maintained that the builders of the dolmens, on the contrary, proceeded from the south to the north, where they attained the height of their civilization. M. Cartailhac, however, stated an important fact that weakens this objection: the dolmens of the South of France contain metallic objects whose place of fabrication could not have been far off; those of the interior and the North only contained articles of polished stone.
A small man now sprang into the tribune, fierce as Orestes tormented by the Eumenides, with black eyes, long streaming hair, and a person of incessant mobility. It is one of the princes of oriental philology—M. Oppert, who began a demonstration of the chronology of remote historical times, which he continued in the afternoon session. He assured us, as he began, that he did not intend to offend any one's religious convictions, or to discuss the chronology of the Bible, which, in his eyes, is eminently respectable. In his opinion, the difference of the dates pointed out in different chronological tables can be explained without any difficulty. M. Oppert showed us how the chronologies of Egypt and Chaldea, which were calculated by cycles of unequal length, begin with the same date—the 19th of January, Gregorian (the 27th of April, Julian), of the year 11542 b.c.!
He therefore concluded that the people of those regions must have observed the important astronomical phenomena of that time, the risings of Sirius perhaps, which would indicate a degree of civilization somewhat advanced for a period still ante-historic. I like to recall the very words he used; they are full of meaning.
M. Ribeiro had made researches in Portugal that appeared to him conclusive as to the existence of pliocene man, and he produced tertiary flints which he believed to be cut. The Abbé Bourgeois, who could not remain indifferent to any proof of tertiary man, allowed an unexpected declaration to escape his lips. “I should like,” said he, “to consider these fragments as authentic proofs of the truth of my theory, but the truth obliges me to declare that I cannot discover any evidence of human labor in them.” M. Ribeiro sank into his seat under this coup de hache-polie, and tertiary man was properly buried, after a later correction from M. Bourgeois, who admitted that one of M. Ribeiro's flints bore marks of human labor, but he had doubts as to its bed.
Anthropology and ethnography had the honors during the greater part of this session.