Chapter X: The Advent of Man

Hitherto we have met with no trace of man or of his works. Yet there have been in our upward progress from the dawn of life mute prophecies of his advent. Man is in his bodily frame a vertebrate animal and a mammal; and when first the Amphibians were introduced in the PalA|ozoic, the framework of manaEuro(TM)s body was already sketched out and its principles settled. Those great reptilian lords, the biped Saurians of the Mesozoic, already foreshadowed his erect posture, though their limbs may have been more ornithic than mammalian. The gradual advance in the brain-development of the Tertiary mammals presaged a coming time when mind would obtain the mastery over claw and tooth and horn; and in the Miocene ages there was already some hint of the precise style of structure in which this new creative idea would be realised. Yet it might have been impossible to imagine beforehand the vast changes which this new idea would inaugurate. In the lower animals such intelligence as they possess is so tied to the physical organisation that it manifests itself as a mechanical unvarying instinct. Man bursts this bond, and in doing so revolutionises the whole scheme of nature. Old things are now put to new uses, the face of nature is changed, varied arts are introduced, and thought enters into the domain of general and abstract truth. Objects are arranged, classified, understood, and while in some respects the whole creation is made to groan under the tyrannous inventions of man, yet these are the inventions of imagination and design. They are the triumph, not of brute force, but of will and intelligence.

That man was not in all the earlier ages of the world, except in these prophecies of his coming, geology assures us. That he is, we know. How he came to be, is, independently of Divine revelation, an impenetrable mysteryaEuro"one which it is doubtful if in all its bearings science will ever be competent to solve. Yet there are legitimate scientific questions of great interest relating to the time and manner of his appearance, and to the condition of his earlier existence and subsequent history, which belong to geology, and in which so great stores of material have been accumulated that a treatise rather than a chapter would be required for their discussion. We may endeavour to select a few of the more important points.

One of the first questions meeting us is that which relates to the point in geological time signalised by the advent of our species. In the Eocene period our continents were being gradually raised out of the ocean, and were still in great part under the waters, which several times returned upon the land, and seemed ready again to engulf it. In this period not only have we no traces of man, but all the higher animals of that age are now extinct. In the later Eocene and Miocene the extent of land became greater, but it was so disposed as to allow the influx into the Arctic Sea of vast volumes of heated water from the equatorial regions; and there may have been also astronomical causes at work to increase this influx of warm water, and so to raise the temperature of the Arctic regions still higher.[83] The middle period of the Tertiary was undoubtedly a time very favourable to the wide distribution of the higher forms of life both animal and vegetable. But we cannot trace man or any of the contemporary mammals back to the Miocene. In the Pliocene the continents had attained to their present elevations, and climates were not dissimilar from those prevailing at present; but still we have no certain indication of the presence of man; and if other modern mammals extend back to this period their number is very small. In this age also the greater part of the continents must have been covered with a great thickness of soil and disintegrated rock favourable to vegetation, and there seemed nothing to preclude the introduction of man. But a new and at first sight most unfavourable change was to intervene. Whether through internal changes affecting the distribution of land and water, or through astronomical vicissitudes, the northern hemisphere, and possibly the whole world, entered on an era of refrigeration, the so-called aEurooeGlacial AgeaEuroŁ of the Post-Pliocene or Pleistocene period. That in this period our continents as far south as the latitude of 40A deg. were overwhelmed with ice or ice-laden seas is rendered evident by the fact that the whole surface up to several thousands of feet above the sea-level has been bared of its accumulated _dA(C)bris_ and polished and grooved by ice, and laden with boulders and other glacial deposits, while in many places at heights of even 1,000 or 1,200 feet these deposits contain sea-shells of species now living in the colder parts of the ocean. These phenomena do not exist in the tropical regions, except in the vicinity of high mountains, but they recur in the southern hemisphere. It is still uncertain whether the period of greatest cold in the two hemispheres was at the same time or in successive ages. Geologically, however, they are approximately contemporaneous, both occurring between the end of the Pliocene and the modern period; but nevertheless they may not have coincided in absolute date.

Very different views have been held as to the precise condition of the continents in the Glacial Age, though all agree in the prevalence of cold and the action of ice, and in the fact of a great submergence at one or more stages of the period. My own conclusions, which I have advocated elsewhere,[84] and which are based on extensive study of the northern parts of America, where the deposits of this age are more widely developed than elsewhere, are that there was one great subsidence, leading to a condition in which the lower levels of the continents were covered with ice-laden water and the higher regions were occupied with permanent snow and glaciers. This submergence went on till even high mountains 4,000 feet or more in elevation were under water. Then there was a gradual though intermittent elevation, during which the climate became ameliorated, and lastly there was a condition in which the land of the northern hemisphere stood higher than at present, and which immediately preceded the modern period. As these conditions have great significance in relation to the appearance of man, I have tabulated them for reference as they occur in Scandinavia, Great Britain, and North America. The so-called aEurooeInterglacial PeriodsaEuroŁ of some geologists are in reality local results of the stages of intermittent elevation in which were deposited beds which in some cases, as in Scotland, Sweden, and Eastern Canada, hold sea-shells, and in others, as in the central areas of North America, contain remains of plants of northern species.

We shall name, for convenience, the parts of this Pleistocene revolution which include the great subsidence and glaciation, the _Glacial_ Age, that extending from the re-elevation to the modern the _Post-glacial_.

The Glacial Age proved fatal to a large proportion of the land life of the previous periods. According to Professor Boyd Dawkins, out of fifty-three species known in Britain in the Post-glacial, only twelve are survivors of the Pliocene; and probably the proportions would not be greater in any part of the northern hemisphere. Some, however, did survive, either by migrating southward or by being inhabitants of places less severely affected than most by the general cold and submergence. There was thus no absolute break in the chain of life effected by the Glacial Age.

TABLE OF PLEISTOCENE DEPOSITS IN SCANDINAVIA, ENGLAND, AND AMERICA. (Order descending.)

+---------------------+--------------------+--------------------------+ | SCANDINAVIA. | GREAT BRITAIN. | NORTH AMERICA. | | (Torell.) | (Lyell, &c.) | | +---------------------+--------------------+--------------------------+ | | | | | Valley-clays and | Hoxne Deposits and | Terrace Gravels | | Heath-sands of | Upper Terrace | and Loess | | Sweden. (No | Gravels. | Deposits. | | fossils.) | PalA|olithic | | | | Implements. | | | | | Placer Gravels of West. | | Terrace-gravels of | Upper Glacial Beds.| | | Norway and Sweden.| Bridlington Beds.| Do. Sand and Gravel, | | (No fossils.) | Upper Boulder | Newer Boulder Drift. | | | Beds. | | | | | So-called Interglacial | | Dryas-clay with | So-called | Beds, with Plants, &c. | | Fossil plants of | "Interglacial" | | | northern species. | Deposits. | Loess Deposits of | | | | Mississippi. | | | | | | Uddevalla beds with | Clyde Beds and | Upper Leda Clay and | | Boreal Marine | Marine Clays. | Champlain Clay, with | | shells. | | Boreal Shells. | | | | | | | | White Silts of British | | | | Columbia. | | | | | | | Mid-Glacial Sands. | Erie Clays and similar | | | | Beds of West. | | | | | | Yoldia Clay and | | Lower Leda Clay, with | | Sand. Arctic | | Arctic Shells. | | Marine Shells. | | | | | | Port Hudson Deposit of | | | | Mississippi. | | Yellow Stony Clay | | | | and Sand, and | | "Syrtensian" Beds of | | Gravel of Scania. | | New Brunswick. | | | | | | | | Orange Sand of | | | | Mississippi. | | | | | | "Moraines de Fond," | Till, or Older | Boulder Clays, with | | or Boulder Clay | Boulder Clay. | Local and some | | proper. | | Travelled Boulders. | | | | | | | | Old Land Surfaces--Peat | | Ancient Diluvial | Pebbly Beds and | under Boulder Clay, | | Sand. | Weyburne Sands, | Local Gravels and | | | Lignitic Forest | Sands. | | | Beds. | | | | | Pre-glacial Gravels of | | | | British Columbia. | +---------------------+--------------------+--------------------------+

In what part of this sequence did man appear? In answer to this, I think it is now generally admitted that he is not certainly known earlier than the Post-glacial period. Various supposed indications of his presence in aEurooeInterglacialaEuroŁ Glacial, Pliocene, and even Miocene deposits have proved on examination to be unreliable. America has recently put forth claims to have been inhabited by man in the Pliocene, on the faith of remains found in auriferous gravels in the West. But the facts that the implements and bones found are modern in type, that the gravels were deeply mined by the Indians, and that the objects found, as mortars for dressing gravel, etc., are in many cases such as they would be likely to leave in their excavations, have discredited these supposed discoveries. Still more recently, chipped flints found in gravels in New Jersey, by Abbott, have been supposed to carry back the Indians of the East coast to the Glacial period. It is evident, however, from the description of these deposits by the late Mr. Belt and by Professor Cook, director of the Survey of New Jersey, that they are really Post-glacial, that their age must be estimated by study of the local conditions, and that there is no good ground for correlating them with the upper members of the true Glacial drift to the northwards, with which they had been somewhat rashly identified. Irrespective of the doubtful character of many if not all of the so-called implements, the deposits in which they are found is confessedly not a product of the ice of the Glacial period proper, whether that was, as some maintain, a period of land glaciation as far south as New Jersey or not. It belongs to a time of denudation by water, aided perhaps by floating ice, and is not necessarily older than the river gravels of the Somme, which, like it, contain boulders and imply conditions of torrential action and climate which have long since passed away. If, however, these implements are genuine, they would imply the presence of PalA|ocosmic or Antediluvian man in America. This would in itself be an important discovery.

For the present, therefore, man is geologically a Post-glacial species, and there is nothing unreasonable in supposing that he dates no farther back, since several animals his contemporaries are in the same case; and by supposing him to have originated after the Glacial age we avoid the difficulties attendant on his survival of that great revolution. The only necessity for supposing an earlier appearance arises from the requirements of the hypothesis of evolution. Those, however, who hold this theory, may with Haeckel take refuge in that shadowy continent supposed to have extended from Africa to Australia,[85] and to have sheltered man in his transition from the ape to humanity, in the Tertiary period. The name Lemuria is taken from the Lemurs, supposed ancestors of the Apes, which still haunt the margin of the Indian Ocean; but it may be taken also in its old Latin sense of ghosts of the evil dead; and as we are not likely to obtain any more tangible evidence of the old natives of Lemuria, perhaps we may hope that some spiritualist may succeed in charming them from the vasty deep for our enlightenment. Should this be so, it is to be hoped that no aEurooedrum ecclesiasticaEuroŁ will be beaten to drive them away till they have revealed all they can tell.

It may be well to add that, in addition to the negative evidence, there is at least one positive evidence of the recent origin of man which has been well urged by Le Conte. It is this: animals have continued long in geological time in the inverse ratio of their rank. Some Mesozoic protozoa still survive. So do many early Tertiary mollusks. But the mammals are of much less duration. No living species goes back farther than the Pliocene. Few extend farther than the Glacial age. On the same principle it is not to be expected that man, the highest of all animals, should extend far back in geological time.

Accepting the Post-glacial age as that of the advent of man, it may be interesting to ask what we know of the condition of our continents when he appeared. In Western Asia, in Europe, except in its more northern portions, and it would now seem also in America, man had been introduced at a time closely following the emergence of the land from the Glacial sea. At this time the land area of both continents was larger than it is at present, and the character of the fauna shows that much of the surface was occupied with great steppes or prairies, over which migration would be easy; while there were probably connections by land or chains of islands between the continents of the northern hemisphere. The land animals of the continents were more numerous and of greater stature than at present. Several species of elephants (Fig. 186) and a rhinoceros roamed over the plains. The formidable _Elasmotherium_ (Fig. 187),[86] an animal allied to the rhinoceros, but more fleet and active, and of immense size, inhabited Asia and Europe. Hippopotami, wild horses, the gigantic Irish stag, several species of wild cattle, and bisons of greater size than their successors, haunted the streams and steppes. The cave bear, the cave lion, the spotted hyA|na, and possibly the _Machairodus_, were among the beasts of prey even in the temperate latitudes. The climate must have been a continental one, ranging through considerable extremes; but the conditions favoured migration of animals on the great scale, so as to avoid these extremes, and hence species of types now comparatively restricted enjoyed a wide distribution.

To establish themselves in such a world, the primitive men must have been no puny race, either in mind or body, and they must have been sheltered in some Eden of plenty and comparative safety till, by increase of numbers, invention of weapons and implements, and domestication of useful animals, they became able to cope with the monarchs of the waste. But this position once attained in the original seats of the species, the wide continents presented great facilities for their movements, and there were ample stores of food for wandering tribes subsisting by the chase.

With such views the skeletons of the most ancient known men[87] fully accord. They indicate a people of great stature, of powerful muscular development, especially in the lower limbs, of large brain, indicating great capacity and resources (Fig. 188), but of coarse Turanian features, like those of the tribes that now roam over the plains of Northern Asia (Fig. 189). They used flint and bone implements, which they manufactured with much skill (Figs. 190, 191). They were probably clothed in dressed skins, ornamented with embroidery, in the manner of the North American Indians. They used shells and carved bones as ornaments. Recent discoveries at Soloutre, in France, render it probable that some of the tribes had tamed the horse, and resided in fortified villages. They buried their dead with offerings, indicating a belief in immortality. These Post-glacial men are certainly known as yet only in Europe and Western Asia; and we cannot therefore determine if they represent the average man of the period. There were in Belgium and other parts of Europe, men of smaller stature and of lower cranial type, contemporary or nearly so with the higher race. There may have been fruit-eating or agricultural peoples in the more genial and fertile lands of the east and south. The conditions above sketched are, I think, fairly deducible from the facts stated by Christy and Lartet, Dupont, RiviA"re, Dawkins, and others, who have studied the remains of these early men, the PalA|olithic men of some writers, or the men of the Mammoth age, and whom I have elsewhere named PalA|ocosmic men, as a term less objectionable than those founded on implements not confined to any age, or animals which may have long antedated man. Recent discoveries in the caves of Spy in Belgium,[88] taken in connection with the previous discoveries of Schmerling and Dupont, seem to show the existence in that country of men of the low-browed Neanderthal or Canstadt type (Fig. 189 third outline), perhaps locally preceding but perhaps contemporaneous with, the larger and better developed men of the Cro-Magnon type (Fig. 189 first outline). These two types are, however, allied, and there are intermediate forms, so that they are to be regarded as two races of PalA|ocosmic men not more dissimilar than we find in cognate rude races at present.

Outer outline, Cro-Magnon Skull. Second outline, Engis Skull. Third outline (dotted), Neanderthal Skull. Inner figure, Hochelagan Skull on a smaller scale.]

They were succeeded in Western Europe by a smaller and less elevated race, identical apparently with the modern Lapps and Basques, and in whose time the mammoth and many large animals had disappeared, Europe had become clad with dense forests, and the reindeer had extended his range far to the south, while the land of our continents had become narrowed to its present limits, or even less. The cause of these changes must have been physical, and to some extent cataclysmal; and its wide-spread and effectual character is shown by the fact that it exterminated so many animals of both continents which had survived the Glacial age. Similar testimony is borne by the occurrence of the implements and remains of PalA|ocosmic men in gravels and in diluvial clays in caverns, and by the changes of level and deep erosions of valleys that are referable to the close of the PalA|ocosmic age. The most probable agencies in this revolution were subsidences of the land, accompanied with climatal changes; but the precise nature and extent of these is still unknown; and the prevalent tendency on the part of geologists to stretch the doctrine of uniformity, so valuable within proper limits, to the absurd extreme of excluding all changes not exemplified even in amount in the modern period, will probably for some time prevent any adequate conception of them.

It would be premature to correlate what is yet known of the PalA|ocosmic age with historical periods; but the tendency of the facts accumulated is, I think, toward the identification of the PalA|ocosmic men with the Antediluvians; and their Neocosmic successors, whether of the reindeer age, of the Danish shell-mounds, or the Swiss lake habitations, with Postdiluvian and still existing tribes.

After what has been already said, it will be unnecessary to dwell upon the characteristics of the first race of men known to us. They were rude and uncivilised, in so far as outward appliances are concerned; but they are confessedly altogether men, and in no respect akin to apes, and their volume of brain is rather greater than that of the average European of to-day; so that they must have had quite as much natural sagacity and capacity for culture, and, like the modern and historic Turanian nations, they were probably superior to the average European in the instinct for art and construction. Thus if we suppose these men derived from apes by any process of gradual change, we must look for their brute ancestors, not in the Pliocene or Miocene, but in the Eocene itself. This causes us to recur to the doctrine of critical periods, when many species were introduced together, alternating with periods of decay and extinction. Post-glacial man appears at the end of a time of sifting and trial, a time in which a vast number of species succumbed to great physical reverses. No very great number of species came in with him, and in the early period of his history there was a decadence or destruction either by the diluvial cataclysm or gradually. Out of ninety-eight species of mammals contemporary with early man in Europe, forty-one are wholly or locally extinct, and none have been introduced except those brought by man himself. Thus man stands alone, the grand product of his period and a lord of creation, for whom great preparatory changes were made, and multitudes of lower animals swept away to make room for him. According to our sacred Scriptures, this change is still imperfect, and great additional ameliorations would have taken place but for a moral catastrophe not within the domain of geologyaEuro"the fall of man. If we identify the PalA|ocosmic men with the Antediluvians of the same venerable record, the roving tribes whose remains are known to us represent that part of the race of Cain of whom Jubal was the father, the nomads dwelling in tents, as distinguished from the settled agricultural peoples. In this case, also, the catastrophe which destroyed these rude and lawless men was that which culminated in the deluge of Noah, which may represent the extinction of the last great body of this primitive race, whose arts, handed down to the physically inferior men of Postdiluvian times, astonish us by their early development in ChaldA|a and in Egypt.

If man is so recent geologically, he may still be very old historically; and the question remains, Have we any facts bearing on the absolute antiquity of man? For the properly historical aspect of this question, I may refer to the excellent work of Canon Rawlinson on the _Origin of Nations_,[89] which shows conclusively that the historic origin of all the great nations of antiquity extends backward less than 4,400 years from our time. Beyond this we have, however, the PalA|ocosmic or Antediluvian men; and their extension backward seems limited geologically only by the close of the Glacial period, while many hold that the Genealogy in Genesis does not require us to limit very narrowly their antiquity. The date of the Glacial period is, however, at present very uncertain. On the one hand, some geologists, like Lyell, have supposed it may be as far back as 200,000 years ago. Others, like Croll, are contented with the more moderate estimate of 80,000 years. On the other hand, the calculations of Andrews, based on the recession of the American lakes, those of Winchell on the recession of the Falls of St. Anthony, and the recent surveys of the recession of the Falls of Niagara, reduce the time to from 7,000 to 10,000 years. It is impossible in the present state of knowledge to settle these disputes; but one may refer in the sequel to some of the evidences which have been adduced in favour of great antiquity. Since the publication of the second edition of this work Prof. Prestwich, in a paper read before the Geological Society,[90] has brought forward other reasons which induce him to conclude that the close of the Glacial epoch occurred aEurooefrom 8,000 to 10,000 years since.aEuroŁ It is true, he admits, on geological evidence still in dispute, that man may have existed in Europe before that time, and he also admits, on historical, not geological evidence, the existence of aEurooeNeolithicaEuroŁ man in Asia, aEurooeat an earlier date than 4,000 B.C.aEuroŁ Still the repudiation, by so good an authority, of the exaggerated antiquity which it has been the fashion, since the rise of Darwinian evolution, to assign to man, contrary to the geological evidence, is a satisfactory indication of a return to more rational views; and when geologists get rid of the fiction of a continental ice-sheet, still farther progress in this direction may be expected.

We may, I think, at once take it for granted, that none of the Neocosmic races date farther back than the origin of the great eastern nations. There are certainly no geological evidences requiring a greater antiquity, for in their time the land had attained to its present configuration, and the changes which have occurred in the succession of forests and the growth of peat are such as our experience in America shows to be possibly quite modern. There is besides no doubt that these people, from the Reindeer men of France and Belgium to the people of the Swiss lakes, are modern races, whose descendants still live in Europe. We can thus limit our inquiry to the PalA|ocosmic men; and with respect to them we know only what may be gathered from a consideration of the physical changes which have occurred since they lived.

In Europe a great number of considerations have been adduced as evidence of their high antiquity; and these deserve careful attention, though I think it will be found that they are all liable to serious objections or great abatements on geological grounds.

(1) The occurrence of human remains with those of animals now extinct affords no certain evidence of antiquity. Admitting that human remains are found along with those of the mammoth in Europe, and with those of the mastodon in America, the question remains, How late did these species survive? In Europe we know that several large animals now extinct existed up to comparatively modern times. This is the case with the Irish deer (_Megaceros_), the urus, the aurochs, and the reindeer, in temperate Europe. How long previously the mammoth or the hairy rhinoceros disappeared we do not know, but need not suppose the time very long.

(2) The accumulation of sediment or of stalagmite over human remains in caverns is not necessarily indicative of very great antiquity. We know that in favourable circumstances mud, sand, and gravel may be rapidly deposited in caves by land floods or river inundations, and that _dA(C)bris_ of various sorts accumulates in such places from decay of rock and vegetable and animal agencies. The deposition of stalagmite is also very variable in its rate; and the fact that it is being very slowly deposited in any cave now does not prove that more rapid deposition may not have taken place formerly. Dawkins and others have ascertained a rate of a quarter of an inch per annum in some caverns; and this would allow the stalagmite crust of KentaEuro(TM)s cave, for which an antiquity of half a million of years has been claimed, to have been formed in a thousand years.

(3) The erosion of river valleys to great depths since the Glacial period fails to establish the great antiquity of the caves left on their sides or the high level gravels of their banks. Throughout the northern hemisphere, the river valleys are of old date, and were merely filled with loose detritus in the Glacial age. The sweeping out of this _dA(C)bris_ would be a rapid process, more especially when changes of level were occurring, and when the rainfall was greater than at present. Besides, as Croll has well remarked, the actual configuration of our continents, the amount of drift still remaining, and the imperfect manner in which the river valleys have been cleared out, all testify to the comparative recency of the Glacial period.[91] These considerations would, indeed, materially reduce the antiquity which he claims on astronomical grounds for the ice age.

(4) The growth of peat and the deposition of silt are very deceptive as indications of great antiquity. For instance, accurate observations made by a French engineer in the construction of docks at St. Nazaire,[92] show that in 1,600 years the Loire had deposited over Gallo-Roman remains six metres of mud. Relics of the Bronze age occur below these at a depth indicating 500 years previously as their date; and the beginning of the modern deposit of the Loire would, on the same evidence, be only 6,000 years ago. HilgardaEuro(TM)s observations on the delta of the Mississippi in like manner tend greatly to reduce our estimates of the time occupied in the deposit of the modern silt of that river. The peat deposit at Abbeville, at the mouth of the Somme, has been supposed to have required 30,000 years for its formation. But this estimate was based upon the present rate of growth; and, as Andrews has shown, the fact admitted by Boucher de Perthes, that birch stems three feet high stand in this peat, implies a much more rapid rate, which is also proved by the depth at which Roman remains have been found. In like manner the Scandinavian peats, to which a fabulous antiquity has been ascribed, have been proved to be comparatively modern by the depths at which metallic works of art are found in them.

(5) The paucity of remains of PalA|ocosmic men in Europe, with their wide distribution, indicate that their sojourn was not long, or that the population was very small and much scattered. Even in a few thousands of years, an active and vigorous people, living in a country well supplied with food, must have multiplied greatly, and must have left considerable remains. On the theory that these men inhabited Europe even for 2,000 years, we have to suppose that the greater part of their remains have been swept away, or remain under the waters, or buried out of sight in diluvial sediments.

(6) Much importance has been attached to the early works and high culture of Egypt and ChaldA|a, as evidence of vast time during which arts were growing from a supposed rude stone age. But it must be observed that no such period is known to antedate civilisation in the East, and that if the early empires were established by survivors of the Deluge, they must have brought with them the culture of Antediluvian times. Farther, the notion of men emerging from a half-brutal state, and from the use of the rudest implements, is purely conjectural and not supported by facts. In America, where the semi-civilised agricultural races are unquestionably the oldest, the rudest possible implements were used by these partially civilised agricultural people along with polished stone and metal; and Schliemann has shown that a rude stone age succeeded the civilisation of Troy, and this at a time when PhA"nicia and Egypt were at the height of their civilisation. Such facts, which might fill volumes, show how little value is to be attached to supposed ages of rough and polished stone.

(7) The difficulties attending the establishment of geological dates for deposits like those containing the remains of men are very great. They are altogether superficial and local, not wide-spread marine beds in which a distinct order of superposition can be clearly traced. They are not easily separated from the glacial beds below, or from those above which have been modified by human agency, by land-floods, or by landslips. Thus the application of geological criteria of age to them is very difficult and uncertain. Evidence of this could easily be given, in the many errors which have been promulgated, and which have had to be retracted by their authors, or have been disproved by the observations of others. For example, no country was at one time richer in supposed evidences of the antiquity of man than Scandinavia; but Professor Torell, the director of the Geological Survey of Sweden, has recently made a careful re-examination of the facts, and has found that there is no evidence whatever of the existence of man in Scandinavia before the Neolithic or polished stone age. There are, however, evidences of considerable changes of level since that time, and it would seem even since the twelfth century of our era. The remarkable and seemingly inexcusable errors of observation referred to in Professor TorellaEuro(TM)s memoir, should enforce a caution on geologists as to the uncertainties of such evidence. Lyell sifted the testimony bearing on this subject with great care in the first edition of his _Antiquity of Man_. In later editions he had to make large abatements, and now much of the evidence in the latest edition would have to be withdrawn or otherwise applied.

From all these considerations the conclusion is obvious that while we have no certain data for assigning a definite number of years to the residence of man on the earth, we have no geological evidence for the rash assertion often made that in comparison with historical periods the date of the earliest races of men recedes into a dim, mysterious, and measureless antiquity. On the basis of that Lyellian principle of the application of modern causes to explain past changes, which is the stable foundation of modern geology, we fail to erect any such edifice as the indefinite antiquity of man, or to extend this comparatively insignificant interval to an equality with the long A|ons of the preceding Tertiary. The demand for such indefinite extension of the history of man rests not on geological facts, but on the necessities of hypotheses which, whatever their foundation, have no basis in the discoveries of that science, and are not required to account for the sequence which it discloses.