JOHN EVANS ON TEKTIAEY MAN. 147 



stages of development. Perhaps the best means of estimating the 

 length of time each occupied is by noting the changes in the fauna 

 and by comparing the living forms of one period with those imme- 

 diately preceding it, and these again with those of the present day. 

 We thus tind that great changes have taken place. The vertebrate 

 animals existing in the early periods are all absolutely extinct, and 

 although some forms of molluscs remain — a small per-centage, it is 

 true — yet of vertebrate land animals there is no survivor whatever 

 of the Eocene period. Of the Pliocene period, one animal, but only 

 one, survives — the hippopotamus — an animal of a most respectable 

 family, if antiquity be considered, and whose Pliocene ancestors 

 cannot be distinguished from the hippopotami of the present day. 



1 have nowbricfly explained what is meant by the term "Tertiary," 

 and have shown that, generally speaking, it is the period of time 

 which succeeded the Secondary — from the Chalk to the formation 

 of the Norwich Crag — and that it embraces at least three periods — 

 the Eocene, the Miocene, and the Pliocene. It has never, as yet, 

 been suggested that any remains of man have been found in beds of 

 the Eocene period. I have heard it maintained that man, being an 

 intelligent animal, is not liable to the changes which naturalists say 

 have supervened to influence other animals, and, therefore, that 

 when once created he has never varied, so that consequently, under 

 certain conditions, his remains might be found in any period, how- 

 ever remote. I am not, however, pi'epared to accept this doctrine. It 

 is supposed that traces of man have been found not only in the 

 Pliocene beds (a time so very remote that hardly any of its mam- 

 malian fauna has survived), but even in the Miocene beds ; and this 

 brings me to that part of my subject when it is necessary to mention 

 certain discoveries which are asserted to have been made of the 

 remains of man belonging to these early times. 



Taking first the Pliocene beds, I may refer to the discovery by 

 Professor Cocchi, at Olmo, near Arezzo, Italy, of a skull, and flint 

 implements, which, however, are undoubtedly Neolithic ; next, to the 

 discovery by M. Aymard of the fossil man of Dcnise — mentioned by 

 Sir Charles Lyell — although there is considerable doubt whether 

 these are the remains of a man who had been buried beneath the 

 Pliocene lava. A more interesting, because better established, 

 discovery is that of M. Desnoyers, at St.-Prest, near Chartres, of 

 cut bones and worked flints, in gravel of Pliocene times, the bones 

 being those of the southern elephant and the worked flints being 

 presumed to have been found associated with them. Cut bones have 

 also been found in Tuscany by Mr. Lawley and M. Capellini, but 

 those which I have mentioned are the principal discoveries alleged 

 to have been made in the Pliocene beds. When we come to the 

 Miocene beds, the first discoveries are those of the Abbe Bourgeois 

 at Thenay, near Pontlevoy, who there found calcined flints, and 

 worked flints, and some cut bones. These were found in the 

 middle Miocene beds, and the bones belong for the most part to the 

 Halitherium, a marine animal. Other and similar discoveries were 

 made at Pouance, in France, in the Upper Miocene beds, of marine 



