On the former Changes of tfte Alps. 39 



tically, to dwell chiefly on the facts brought forward, and to 

 believe that they are indisputably and clearly proven. They 

 tell us unmistakeably how different creations of animal and 

 vegetable life are entombed in these vast monuments of 

 ancient nature, and they reveal to us that each creation of 

 the successive inhabitants of the surface lived during very 

 long periods of time. They announce to us, in emphatic 

 language, how ordinary operations of accumulation were 

 continued tranquilly during very lengthened epochs, and 

 how such tranquillity was broken in upon by great convul- 

 sions. 



*' Being thus led to ponder upon the long history of suc- 

 cessive races, and also upon some of the most wonderful 

 physical revolutions the chain has undergone, we cannot 

 avoid arriving at the belief, that, in addition to many other 

 great operations, the disruption which upheaved the middle 

 and younger Tertiary formations from beneath the waters, 

 and threw them up into mountain masses accompanying the 

 production of the first great arctic period known in the 

 history of the planet, was a change of immeasurable inten- 

 sity. That change, in short, by which a period of snow, 

 ice, glaciers, floating ice-bergs, and the transports of huge 

 erratics far from sources of their origin, suddenly followed a 

 genial and Mediterranean clime !" 



R. I. M. 



General and Special Apophthegms. By ROBERT GORDON 

 Latham, M.D., F.R.S., &c.* 



Although the enumeration, classification, and partial de- 

 scription of the varieties of the human species form the basis 

 of the natural history of man, a short notice of the general 

 character of the science which investigates itisa proper adjunct 

 to them. This will consist in apophthegms upon its nature, 

 objects, and methods, as far as the last have been evolved. 



* As the Natural History of Man is at present engaging very general atten- 

 tion, we believe the publication of Dr Latham's important Apophthegms, or 

 Maxims, will prove very useful in directing the studies of Ethnologists. — Ed. 

 Phil. Journ. 



