522 THE NATURAL HISTORY REYIEW. 



" of his antiquity. He must have seen tlie Somme running at a 

 " height of about a hundred feet above its present level. It is indeed 

 "probable that he dates back in Northern France, almost, if not quite, 

 " as far as the rivers themselves. The fauna of the country must 

 " have been indeed unlike what it is now. Along the banks of the 

 " rivers ranged a savage race of hunters and fishermen, and in the 

 " forests wandered the mammoth, the two-horned w^oolly rhinoceros, 

 " a species of tiger, the musk ox, the rein deer, and the urus." 

 Pursuing this branch of the subject, Sir John Lubbock remarks 

 that the discoveries already described by no means exhaust the 

 evidence now accumulated in favour of the great antiquity of the 

 human race. The double change w4iich is shown to have taken place 

 in the prevalent vegetation of Denmark since the human period, the 

 implements disinterred from the gravel-cone of the Tiniere, and the 

 calculations of M. Gillieron as to the time requisite for the silting- 

 up of the head of the Lake of Bieune since the building of the lake 

 habitation of the Pont de Thiele are among the points touched upon 

 by our author in connection with this part of the subject. The 

 Egyptian researches of Mr. Horner, the calculations of Sir Charles 

 Lyell as to the age of the Mississippi Delta and as to the duration of 

 the glacial epoch in this country are also commented upon. There can 

 be no doubt, he observes, of the interest of these and such estimates, 

 but we must always recollect that they are brought forward " not 

 f\>'& proofs but as measures of antiquity." Our belief in the antiquity 

 of man rests not on any isolated calculations, but on the changes 

 that have taken place since his appearance, in the geography, the 

 fauna and the climate of Europe. These, though they afford us no 

 means of measurement, impress us with a vague and overpowering 

 sense of antiquity. Sir Charles Lyell — himself the able advocate 

 and populariser of these view^s — has fixed upon the pliocene strata as 

 the earliest in which we may expect to find evidence of man's 

 existence. But Sir John Lubbock alleges fiiirly enough that " if 

 " man constitutes a separate family of Mammalia, as he does in 

 " the opinion of the highest authorities, then, according to all palae- 

 " ontological analogies he must have had representatives in Miocene 

 '* times. We need not, however, expect to find the proofs in Europe. 

 " Our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom are confined to hot, 

 "almost to tropical, climates ; and if^ is in such countries that we 

 " must look for the earliest traces of the human race." 



Havinof thus far devoted himself to the facts that have been 



