The Meeting-Place of Geology and History

too often overlooked by writers who have a prejudice in favour of everything passing imperceptibly and by slow degrees into that by which it is followed-an exa

d, while separated from the pal?ocosmic men preceding them, are linked with the races of modern times. It is no doubt true that occasional and abnormal human skulls may to this day be seen on living men which are more or less of the Canstadt o

by early man having disappeared, and the more meagre modern fauna having come in at once. Thus it may be affirmed that the

absolutely or locally; and this agrees with the fact of diminution of land area, since it seems to be a law of the geological

holding the remains of post-glacial animals. These are widely spread over the whole northern hemisphere, and ascend in some districts to high levels. An interesting illustration has recently been given by Dr. Nuesch and M. Boule, in the deposits under a rock-shelter at Schweizersbild, near Schaffhausen. [25] These show an overlying deposit with 'neolithic' implements and bones of recent animals, a bed of rubble and lo

Missions, &c. vol. iii. Noti

inds. Some are abrupt and accompanied with earthquake shocks. These are very local, and usually occur in regions of volcanic activity. Others are so slow and gradual as to be scarcely perceptible, and are often of wider distribution. It is evident, however, that these slight and local phenomena furnish but little clue to the mutations of past periods. These were on a far grander scale and affected vast areas. We have no modern inst

riod and the shrunken dimensions of the present lands. Besides this we find on the surface of the land modern raised beaches, deposits of loess and plateau gravels, intrusions of mud into caves of considerable elevation

. Inst., 1894; Dawkins, Journal Anthrop. Inst., February 1894. Kingsmill and Skertchly (Nature, November 10, 1892) report the Asiatic loess to be marine, and to ex

ke some of those of Western America may belong to this period. It is therefore allowable to suppose that the cause of submergence may have been either depression of the land, or elevation of the bed of the ocean throwing its waters over the land, or possibly a combination of both. Movements of these kinds have recurred again and aga

ousand years. Perhaps it was considerably longer. Now on historical evidence produced by Egypt, Chaldea, and other ancient countries in the Mediterranean region, we can trace the neanthropic age continuously back to, say, three thousand years B.C., or nearly five thousand years in all. Adding to this two thousand years for the palanthropic age, we are carried back to a time within one thousand years of the earliest we can assign on geological grounds to the termination of the great glacial period. Therefore, unless we suppose the last continen

ge was inaugurated. How this took place we have to inquire in the sequel. In the meantime we may merely remark that since the two principal races of primitive men known to us in Europe seem to have perished, we must infer that individuals of a third race beyond the limits of Europe were destined to survive, and again to

osed that the Esquimaux may be their descendants; but they are quite different in physical characters, and have no nearer resemblance in their arts than other rude peoples. In opposition to all this we have not only the remarkable change in the races of men and in their animal associates, but when we know that the whole geographical features of our continents have changed since the palanthropic age, and that not only are our continents reduced in size since the continental post-glacial period, but that there is evidence of re-elevation as

, and may have had no means of knowing the extent of the disaster or of preserving its memory. On the other hand, they may have attained to a sufficient degree of culture to have had some means of perpetuating the memory of great events. If so, we may imagine that the great diluvial

the Neolithic Period,' reaches me when correcting the proof of this vo

ent the Sethites, and the giant race of Cro-magnon and Mentone as the equivalent of the 'mighty men' or Nephelim of Genesis who arose from the mixture of the two or