ille, where he remained for
the rest of his life, being superannuated in January 1853, and dying on
the 5th of August 1868. His leisure was chiefly devoted to the study of
what was afterwards called the Stone Age, "antediluvian man," as he
expressed it. About the year 1830 he had found, in the gravels of the
Somme valley, flints which in his opinion bore evidence of human
handiwork; but not until many years afterwards did he make public the
important discovery of a worked flint implement with remains of
elephant, rhinoceros, &c., in the gravels of Menchecourt. This was in
1846. A few years later he commenced the issue of his monumental work,
_Antiquites celtiques et an ediluviennes_ (1847, 1857, 1864; 3 vols.), a
work in which he was the first to establish the existence of man in the
Pleistocene or early Quaternary period. His views met with little
approval, partly because he had previously propounded theories regarding
the antiquity of man without facts to support them, partly because the
figures in his book were badly executed and they included drawings of
flints which showed no clear sign of workmanship. In 1855 Dr Jean Paul
Rigollot (1810-1873), of Amiens, strongly advocated the authenticity of
the flint implements; but it was not until 1858 that Hugh Falconer
(q.v.) saw the collection at Abbeville and induced Prestwich (q.v.) in
the following year to visit the locality. Prestwich then definitely
agreed that the flint implements were the work of man, and that they
occurred in undisturbed ground in association with remains of extinct
mammalia. In 1863 his discovery of a human jaw, together with worked
flints, in a gravel-pit at Moulin-Quignon near Abbeville seemed to
vindicate Boucher de Perthes entirely; but doubt was thrown on the
antiquity of the human remains (owing to the possibility of interment),
though not on the good faith of the discoverer, who was the same year
made an officer of the Legion of Honour together with Quatrefages his
champion. Boucher de Perthes displayed activity in many other
directions. For more than thirty years he filled the presidential chair
of the Societe d'Emulation at Abbeville, to the publications of which he
contributed articles on a wide range of subjects. He was the author of
several tragedies, two books of fiction, several works of travel, and a
number of books on economic and philanthropic questions. To his
scientific books may be added _De l'homme antedilumen et de ses oeuvres_