XVIII. 



A FEW WORDS ON TERTIARY MAN. 



By John Evans, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., F.G.S., etc. 



Abstract of a Lecture delivered at St. Albans, 2Qth October, 1880. 



Om Secretary was anxious for some one to give a short address 

 at this meeting; and on my consenting to do so, he has advertised me 

 to give a lecture, while I really had not the slightest intention of 

 saying more than a very few words. Before doing this, however, 

 I may venture to congratulate the Society on two points : first, on 

 its being something of a peripatetic Society, holding its meetings at 

 various towns throughout the county ; and, secondly, on the interest 

 the inhabitants of St. Albans take in its doings. A more inclement 

 evening than this, one could hardly imagine, and I am glad to see 

 such a really good attendance notwithstanding this drawback. But 

 these matters have nothing to do with the subject of my lecture, "A 

 Few Words on Tertiary Man." Of course every member of the 

 Society is perfectly aware of the meaning of the term "Tertiary 

 Man," and of the questions which are involved in it ; but as there 

 are a certain number of strangers present, it may be necessary to 

 give some explanation of the term as an introduction to the subject 

 upon which I am about to speak. I need hardly enter into the 

 question of what is meant by Man, taking the word in its wider 

 sense, but I have this evening to speak not so much of the homo 

 sapiens, or wise man, as of the homo incipiens, or early man ; and 

 assuming that man did exist in such remote times as are implied 

 by the word "Tertiary," we have to consider whether we shall 

 adopt the views of Mortillet and others, and speak of him rather as 

 an intelligent being than as a man such as those of the present day. 

 That, however, is a point to which we need but give a very small 

 amount of attention at this time ; but as to the meaning of the word 

 " Tertiary," a considerably larger amount of explanation is necessary. 

 All may have heard that the history of geological time is divided 

 into three great periods — the Pi'imary, or Palaeozoic ; the Secondary, 

 or Mesozoic ; and the Tertiary, or Cainozoic — the time of recent 

 animals, or of those of the present day. These terms of division are 

 only arbiti'ary, for time is continuous ; they are merely convenient 

 divisions, founded on breaks in the continuity of strata. It is true 

 that there are often certain breaks between different strata, but 

 there are more clearly-defined breaks between the greater divisions. 

 Though the gaps between these divisions are gradually being filled 

 up, there still remains a well-marked interval between them, at all 

 events so far as the geology of Western Europe is concerned. We 

 are in the habit of dividing the day into morning, noon, and evening ; 

 but these divisions have no very precise limits : and though the day 

 is divided into twelve or twenty-four hours, there are really no such 



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