202 NATURAL SCIENCE. Sept.. 1895. 



required varies inversely with the inherent probability of the proposi- 

 tion to be proved, and when we are dealing with the evidence for the 

 existence of Tertiary man, we must demand most irrefragable evidence 

 both of the derivation of the remains and of the age of the stratum 

 they are supposed to be derived from. In the present case the latter 

 is clear enough, but as regards the former there is a possibility of the 

 flakes, if products of human handicraft, having been dropped on the 

 spur, or washed down from the plateau above, and subsequently 

 become partially embedded in the weathered surface ; the possibility 

 being rendered more probable by the fact that the implements are not 

 confined to the outcrop of the fossiliferous ferruginous bed, but are 

 scattered over the surface of the plateau above. 



Under these circumstances, it cannot be said that the Tertiary age 

 of the flakes has been proved, and till more complete evidence has been 

 produced it is impossible to accept the existence of man in either 

 Miocene or Pliocene times as one of the established facts of geology. 



R. D. Oldham. 



