682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tained bones of other yet extant animals also, viz., the aurochs, 1 rein- 

 deer, and stag. 



Most of the human relics of any sort have been found in the more 

 recent layers of the drift. They have been discovered, however, not 

 only in the older drift, but also, though very rarely, in the underlying 

 Tertiary. For instance, in the upper Pliocene at St.-Prest, near Char- 

 tres, were found stone implements and cuttings on bone, in connection 

 with relics of a long-extinct elephant (Elephas meridionalis) that is 

 wholly lacking in the drift. During the past two years the evidences 

 of human existence in the Tertiary period i. e., previous to the age 

 of mammoths of the Diluvial period have multiplied, and by their 

 multiplication give cumulative confirmation to each other. Even in 

 the lower strata of the Miocene (the middle Tertiary) important dis- 

 coveries of stone knives and bone-cuttings have been made, as at 

 Thenay, department of Marne-et-Loire, and Billy, department of 

 Allier, France. Prof. J. D. Whitney, the eminent State geologist of 

 California, reports similar discoveries there also. So, then, we may 

 believe that before the last great upheaval of the Alps and Pyrenees, 

 and while the yet luxuriant vegetation of the then (i. e.,in the Tertiary 

 period) paradisaic climate yet adorned Central Europe, man inhabited 

 this region. 



Such discoveries relegate the beginning of human life to a time 

 the remoteness of which is to be estimated not by years, but by millenni- 

 ums. It is of course difficult to even approximate to a date so distant, 

 but there is reason to believe it must have been at least 50,000 years 

 ago. Even the Indian, Persian, Assyrian, and Egyptian civilizations, 

 with their languages, literatures, and aehitectural monuments, re- 

 quired a long, long time for their development from their rude begin- 

 nings, and hence a far longer time for the whole lifetime of that race. 

 For a people remains a long time in its primitive condition, and its 

 first progress is very slow, as .the savage and semi-savage races of to- 

 day prove to us. But the progress of a people well endowed being 

 begun, it advances with giant strides, at a rate increasing in geometri- 

 cal ratio. 



It were vain to draw positive or detailed conclusions as to the 

 grade of culture attained by the man of the Diluvial period from the 

 comparatively few relics of his life as yet found in the drift and caves. 

 These data are yet too few, slight, and disconnected, for that. For 

 instance, while some of the skulls (that from the Neanderthal espe- 

 cially) indicate an apedike race, of short stature, others are of a type 

 far higher, and scarcely differing from those of European tribes yet 

 living. 



A human jaw-bone, of remarkable cast, was lately taken from the 

 Trou de la Nanlette, a cave on the river Lesse, near Dinant, during 



1 Or Lithuanian bison. A few living specimens of, this animal are carefully preserved 

 by the Emperor of Russia. Trans. 



