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Prestwich's two objections are the data of astronomy, and "the difficulty of conceiving that man could have existed for 80,000 or 100,000 years without change and without progress." The former is "only one degree less mischievous than the theological prepossession."
This letter aroused the interest of the English geologists, and in the spring of 1859 Prestwich and Mr. Falconer. "The evidence yielded by the valley of the Somme," continues Falconer, in speaking of this visit, "was gone into with the scrupulous care and severe and exhaustive analysis which are characteristic of Mr. Prestwich's researches.
Gravel of Gold Brook, a tributary of the Waveney. 2. Higher-level gravel overlying the freshwater deposit. 3 and 4. Sand and gravel, with freshwater shells, and flint implements, and bones of mammalia. 5. Peaty and clayey beds, with same fossils. 6. Boulder clay or glacial drift. 7. Sand and gravel below boulder clay. 8. Mr. Prestwich's attention was called by Mr.
"The great point was not to leave the workmen for a single instant, and to satisfy oneself by actual inspection whether the hatchets were found in situ. Prestwich's visit to St. Acheul, seen the sections at Abbeville and Amiens, and had come to the opinion that the hatchets were imbedded in the "lower diluvium," and that their origin was as ancient as that of the mammoth and the rhinoceros.
However, Prestwich has some "facts" as well as prepossessions, such as "the rapid advance of the glaciers of Greenland," which does not accord with the generalization from the Swiss glaciers; and the quicker erosion of river valleys, due to a greater rainfall; facts which, however, are met by "a minute description of the successive changes by which in post-glacial time the Mersey valley and estuary were brought into their present condition, with an estimate of the time they may have required;" which is "in round numbers 60,000 years," as opposed to Prestwich's 10,000 or 8,000.
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