The Meeting-Place of Geology and History

e remains we know in the earliest caves and gravels belong to men who were developed from apes on the method of natural selection,

t, as we know no one species of higher animal of the many found in the miocene that has survived to our time. The privilege of enjoying the forests of the miocene age seems to have been reserved for some large and specialised monkeys, which even D

hecus and M

afterward by semi-civilised peoples for working in bone and skin, there are grave doubts whether they actually came from the miocene beds. Lastly, it has even been suggested that these flints may be the handiwork of miocene apes, a suggestion not so unreasonable as at first sight it appears, when taken in connection with the working instincts of beavers and other animals. Monkeys, however, seem to have less of this gift as artificers than m

Courny an

ered as that of an expert, was satisfied that the remains had not been interred, but were part of the original deposit. Unfortunately the skull of the only perfect skeleton is said to have been of fair proportions and superior to those of the ruder types of post-glacial men. This has cast a shade of suspicion on the discovery, especially on the part of evolutionists, who think it is not in accordance with theory that man should retrograde between the pliocene and the early modern period, instead of advancing. Still we may ask, why not? If men existed in the fine climates of the miocene and early pliocene, why should they not have been a noble rac

uld appear that worked flints and broken bones of animals occur in deposits, the relations of which would indicate that they belong either to the base of the pleistocene or close of the pliocene. They are imbedded in sands derived from eocene and pliocene beds, and supposed to have been remanié by wind action. With the modesty of a true man of science,

'Académie Royale

Geological Societ

s, that of the early pleistocene and the early modern, the former of which, and perhaps the latter also, must have been accompanied with a gre

ical grounds attaches to the reports of these discoveries, and how uncertain is the reference of the supposed implements to undisturbed glacial deposits, and how much such of the 'pal?oliths' as appear to be the work of man resemble the rougher tools and rejectamenta of the modern Indians. But since the publication of that work, so great a numb

l Man, Lon

mber 1892; Journal

ING THE RELATION OF THE STONE IMPLEMENTS

o a talus of loose débris lying against it, and to which modern Indians resorted to find material for implements, and left behind them rejected or unfinished pieces. This alleged discovery has therefore no geological or anthropological significance. The same acute and industrious observer has inquired into a number of similar cases in different parts of the United States, and finds all liable to objections on similar grounds, except in a few cases in which the alleged

ES, MODERN AMERI

6), unfinished an

velopment from the unfinished oval f

his the rather since, if such men ever existed in the northern hemisphere, the cold and submergence of the pleistocene must have cut the

genuine, might go back to the pliocene age, but in so far as the evidence now available indicates, they all belong to th

ad passed away, and in the early part of the modern period. My own view is, that it is most natural to draw the boundary line of the pleistocene and anthropic or modern at the point where the earliest certain evidences of man appear, and that the anthropic age will be found to include not only an early period of mild climate succeeding the glacial age, but a little later a return o

l age was, like the preceding pliocene, a time of continental elevation, in which the dry land spread itself widely over the now submerged margins of the sea basins. In Europe, the British Islands were connected with the mainland, and Ireland was united to England. The Rhine flowed northward to the Orkneys, through a wide plain probably wooded and swarming with great quadrupeds, now extinct or strange t

hern hemisphere, while the newly-raised land and that vacated by snow and ice became clothed with vegetation, and were occupied by a rich quadrupedal fauna, including even in the norther

the world, or are found only beyond the limits of Central, Western, and Southern Europe. The extinct species also include the largest and noblest of all. It has been remarked that the assemblage of palanthropic species in Europe and Western Asia is so great and varied th

of mammals in the pleistocene and early modern. Of these

part, the palanthropic age was distinguished by a warm climate, in its later portion a colder and more inclement atmosphere crept over the northern hemisphere. As an illustration of this, it is known that in the earlier part of the period a noble species of elephant named Elephas antiquus, and a rhinoceros (R. Merkii), abounded in Europe; but as the age advanced these species disappeared, and were replaced by the mammoth (E. primigenius) and the woolly rhinoceros (R. tichorhinus), animals clothed like the musk-ox in dense wool and hair, and evidently intended for a rigorous cli

ve long attracted the attention of collectors, and have in some cases been referred to glacial or pre-glacial times. I bel

,' Journ. Geol. Soc., 1893; Daw

in a tabular form the series of events included in the p

OIC, OR TER

er, or from the O

d of long duration, elevated land,

ate. Glaciers on all mountains near to coasts and ice-drift over submerged plains. Glacial period, wit

appears in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Terminated by a recurrence of cold and great subsidence, deluging all the lower lands. Neanthropic.-Area of