PALEOLITHIC RACES 341 



that of the Hotting interval, and glaciers overflowed the forests 

 of the Inn. 



It is fortunate for our argument that the advancing ice did 

 not sweep away and destroy the Hotting breccia, as it has 

 destroyed in all probability a great number of similar deposits. 

 A few other instances of undoubted interglacial beds do, 

 however, exist — notably that of Durnten, in the neighbourhood 

 of Zurich — and these afford almost equally cogent testimony. 



In the light of these facts the imaginary sequence of events 

 suggested by the river terraces acquires a greater appearance 

 of reality, so much so that we may now make use of these 

 features in our subsequent inquiries. 



The four terraces are ruled, as it were, across the last page 

 of terrestrial history ; they are datum lines, which enable us 

 to divide the Pleistocene or Quaternary epoch into eight ages, 

 the first, second, third, and fourth glacial ages, and a similar 

 succession of genial ages. We are thus provided with a 

 chronological scale to which we can refer the more important 

 events in the early history of the human race. 



II 



The dawn of the human race is supposed to belong to a past 

 more remote than the beginning of the great Ice age ; yet of 

 the existence of man antecedent to this epoch not a vestige 

 of evidence, forcible enough to compel universal belief, has up 

 to the present time been discovered. Even Pithecanthropus, 

 that singular apelike form, which makes the nearest approach 

 to the genus Homo, although referred by its discoverer to the 

 Pliocene, 1 has since been asserted on good authority to belong 

 more probably to the Quaternary epoch. 2 



Thus a problem presents itself at the very outset of our 

 investigation, and as a first step towards its discussion we 

 may commence with an account of the just-mentioned Pithe- 

 canthropus. 



1 Eugene Dubois, "Einige van Nederlandschen Kant verkregen uitkomsten met 

 betrekking tot de kennis der Kendeng-Fauna (Fauna van Trinil)," Tijdschrift v.h. 

 K. Nederl. Aardrijk. Genoot, 1907, ser. 2, vol. xxiv. p. 449. 



* W. Volz, " Das geologische Alter der Pithecanthropus-Schichten bei Trinil, 

 Ost-Java," Nenes Jahrbuch f. Mineral., etc., Fes/bund zur Feier des 100 Jahrigen 

 Bes/e/iens, Stuttgart, 1907, p. 256 ; and Branca, " Vorlaufiger Bericht," etc., Sitzber. 

 d. k. Preussischen Ak. d. Wiss. Berlin, 1908, p. 261). 



