G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 179 



discovery of human remains, or those of human industry, 

 found in the ground at a greater or lesser depth. He had 

 carefully read, or rather studied in the most complete man- 

 ner, all that had been published on that subject the works 

 of Lyell, Sir John Lubbock, Dr. Evans, Prestwich, Pengelly, 

 Buchan,Vogt, Desor, Morlot, De Mortillet, etc. For many 

 years he had read and followed all that had been written on 

 these subjects, and he now made it his duty to declare sol- 

 emnly, after this tiresome and patient study, that none of the 

 discoveries, none of the facts brought forward, often with a 

 great deal of precision, have the importance that has been at- 

 tributed to them ; that not only the existence of man in the 

 pliocene, eocene, and miocene ages, as Dr. Evans had de- 

 clared so authoritatively, is not at all proved, but that the 

 quaternary soils in which human remains or remains of hu- 

 man industry have been found are certainly moving soils, 

 movable on declivities, as is affirmed by the eminent geolo- 

 gist, M. Elie de Beaumont ; that the soils of the stalagmitic 

 caves, like the celebrated cave of Torquay, which so much 

 occupied the attention of the British Association, have been 

 overrun by water, or some other natural agent, in such a 

 manner that the layers of mud originally laid on the stalag- 

 mites have slipped below them, but that even geology must 

 remain quite apart from archaeology and human palaeontolo- 

 gy, because its work had come to an end when man had ap- 

 peared on the earth. 



He added, while requesting indulgence for the liberty he 

 was taking, that the question of man, in connection with ge- 

 ology or palaeontology, is exactly at the same point which 

 this question had formerly : first, its relations with the history 

 of Indian astronomy as practiced by the unfortunate Bailly, at 

 the time when Laplace threw so brilliant a light on the errors 

 of his illustrious fellow-laborer ; second, in its relaitons with 

 the discoveries of the zodiacs of Denderah and of Esne, from 

 his investigations of which the immortal Champollion earned 

 the name of Ccesar Autocrator. The arguments in favor of the 

 existence of man several ages previous to the epoch fixed by 

 the Holy Bible for the creation of Adam an epoch which it 

 is, however, impossible to determine, and which can be taken 

 back to 10,000 years had reached their maximum to-day; 

 they would only decrease day by day until they vanished. 

 18 A, August 25,563. 



