180 M. Bronn on the Laws of Evolution of the Organic World 



remains of fossil animals in the same strata. Nevertheless any 

 one who chooses to submit them to the most severe criticism 

 may still leave the door open for certain doubts. 

 . It is therefore useless, in our opinion, to speak of those cases 

 in which the pretended discovery of human bones, going back 

 to the Diluvial! epoch, or even to a still more ancient period, has 

 been com})letely refuted. Nor shall we dwell upon the tradi- 

 tions which are preserved by the inhabitants of New Zealand and 

 Madagascar with regard to the existence of gigantic birds, such 

 as the Moa [Dinornis) and the JEpyornis in remote countries — 

 birds of w^hich we now find the eggs and bones in strata of very 

 recent origin ; for it is very possible that these traditions repose 

 merely upon the existence of these fossil remains, and in any 

 case they are not supported by sufficient proofs*. 



Nevertheless all these facts, although they do not prove 

 irrefragably the coexistence of man with species of animals now 

 extinct, certainly deserve serious consideration. If, in the pre- 

 sent state of science, we collate them with the discovery men- 

 tioned in this work, of the skull of an Indian at a great depth 

 in the Cypress- deposits of Louisiana f, we cannot but see that it 



* In the case of the Moa, Mr. W. Man tell 's late observalions support 

 the statements as to the cotemporaneity of man with this great bird. — Ed. 

 Annals. 



t The author alludes to the following facts. Messrs. Dickesonand Brown 

 have discovered in Louisiana a deposit of fossil Cypress-trunks {Cupressus 

 disticha, Linn., Taxodium distichum, Rich.) belonging to the same species 

 which still exists in the regions exposed to the inundations of the Missis- 

 sippi. This deposit is formed of ten layers of Cypresses, arranged verti- 

 cally one above the other, and separated by layers of earth. Ten trunks 

 of great diameter have been met with, for each of which the counting of 

 the woody layers of growth gave a duration of about 5700 years. Above 

 the most recent of these Cypress-beds there now grows a forest of ever- 

 green Oaks, the age of which is estimated at 1500 j^ears. Mr. Dowler 

 (Jameson's Journal, 1854, Ivii. pp. 3/4, 3/5) takes these facts as the basis 

 of the following chronological calculations. The soil formed by the 

 alluvia of the river originally produced only herbage ; it was a vast bog 

 with a moving soil. It was only by degrees, when the soil had been ele- 

 vated and become more solid, that the Cyjjress-forests could estabhsh 

 themselves upon it. We know (thanks to the ancient data of Strabo) that 

 the Nile, in the space of seventeen centuries, has only elevated the soil of 

 Egypt, by its deposits of alluvium, at the rate of five feet in a century. 

 Adopting a similar standard of measurement, we should have to suppose 

 that it was only at the end of 1500 years that the soil of the moving bog 

 became sufficiently firm to support Cypresses. Now, if we consider that 

 some of the Cypresses which we find in this fossil forest attained the very 

 great age of 5700 years, and if we pay attention to the fact that, for each 

 of the ten layers of the deposit, we are compelled to assume generations of 

 Cypresses succeeding one another, perhaps in great number, to be after- 

 wards thrown down and left to decompose before the period at which the 

 trees still actually living were developed, we shall not be charged with 

 exaggeration in calculating for the duration of the deposition of each bed 



