DISTRIBUTION OF ^^AN. (55 



and neighbouring land ? Geological science had established the fact of continuous and progressive, 

 though extremely slow mutations of land and sea, and had taught them that the continents of modern 

 geography were only the last phases of those mutations. How long the himian species had existed 

 and how far they had been contemporaneous with such mutations were the preliminary questions 

 which presented themselves in grappling with the problem suggested by a pecidiar insular race like 

 the Mincopies. . . . Was it not possible that the Andamaners might have come from noichcvc, that 

 is to say, from no actual contiguous and separate land, but might be the representatives of an 

 old race belonging to a former continent that had almost disappeared ?"* 



* Owen, in " Proc. Geogiaph. Soc," 1S62, p. 82. 



K 



