THE BOUNDARY-LINE BETWEEN GEOLOGY AND HISTORY. 



a lectuhe delrv'eked before the vienna society for toe diffusion of scientific knowledge, 



By Edward Suess, 



[Translated for the Smithsonian iDstitution.] 



If we were to attempt a general review of the whole i^ast history of 

 our earth and its inhabitants, we should be immediately led to consider 

 the first appearance of man as one of its chief epochs. The study of 

 the countless ages preceding that epoch belongs exclusively to geol- 

 ogy and iwliTSontology ; the study of the later and much shorter period 

 principally to history. 



The boundary between geology and history is therefore the time of 

 the first api)earance of man, and it is the part of a lecturer on this epoch 

 to describe the phenomena whicli attended the first appearance of the 

 human race. However, that cannot be done in the i)resent state of 

 science, since it is probable that man did not appear everywhere at 

 the same time. Perhaps thousands of years intervened between his first 

 appearance in Asia and America, in Europe and in Australia, and hence 

 it is necessarj^ to divide our subject into geographical periods. We shall 

 confine ourselves to the first aiypearancc of man in Central Europe, that 

 part of the earth beiug the only one which has been sufficiently inves- 

 tigated in this respect to arrive at any possible scientific conclusions. 



Geology teaches that our mountains were produced by numerous dis- 

 turbances after many changes in the distribution of land and water, and 

 that afterward they assumed their jiresent forms, and the continents 

 their present outlines. PaliEoutology exhibits to us strange beiugs in 

 the first periods of life, whose forms, only in a few instances, present any 

 analogy to existing species. The nearer w-e approach the i^resent time, 

 however, the greater becomes the similarity to the present animals and 

 plants. Even before the appearance of man in Central Europe, there were 

 first marine and then land animals and plants, kindred to whicli still 

 exist; and since their places and modes of living are known, we are 

 enabled to draw from them many certain conclusions as to the external 

 conditions of life in those ancient times. In this way the geologist and 

 the palaeontologist approach the first appearance of man from distant 

 ages, and the nearer they approach the clearer are their observations 

 and the more certain their conclusions. The opposite is the case in his- 

 tory 5 the historian must go backward to arrive at the same i)oint. 



If, now, in Middle and Northern Europe we endeavor to go back 

 before the times of which we have the short and partial descriptions of 



