Great as he was in his own field, he was not a great geologist; he, in fact, led geology astray for many years.

Moreover, he lived in a time of reaction; it was the period of the restored Bourbons, of the Voltairean King Louis XVIII, governing to please orthodoxy.

Boue's discovery was, therefore, at first opposed, then enveloped in studied silence.
Cuvier evidently thought, as Voltaire had felt under similar circumstances, that "among wolves one must howl a little"; and his leading disciple, Elie de Beaumont, who succeeded, him in the sway over geological science in France, was even more opposed to the new view than his great master had been.

Boue's discoveries were, therefore, apparently laid to rest forever.( 185) (185) For the general history of early views regarding stone implements, see the first chapters in Cartailhac, La France Prehistorique; also Jolie, L'Homme avant les Metaux; also Lyell, Lubbock, and Evans.

For lightning-stones in China and elsewhere, see citation from a Chinese encyclopedia of 1662, in Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p.209.On the universality of this belief, on the surviving use of stone implements even into civilized times, and on their manufacture to-day, see ibid., chapter viii.