92 Selections from Huxley 



Thus, not only is it certain that the chalk is the mud of 

 an ancient sea-bottom; but it is no less certain, that the 

 chalk sea existed during an extremely long period, though 

 we may not be prepared to give a precise estimate of the 

 5 length of that period in years. The relative duration is 

 clear, though the absolute duration may not be definable. 

 The attempt to affix any precise date to the period at 

 which the chalk sea began, or ended, its existence, is 

 baffled by difficulties of the same kind. But the rela- 



10 tive age of the cretaceous epoch may be determined with 

 as great ease and certainty as the long duration of that 

 epoch. 



You will have heard of the interesting discoveries re- 

 cently made, in various parts of Western Europe, of flint 



15 implements, obviously worked into shape by human hands, 

 under circumstances which show conclusively that man is 

 a very ancient denizen of these regions. 



It has been proved that the old populations of Europe, 

 whose existence has been revealed to us in this way, con- 



20 sisted of savages, such as the Esquimaux are now; that, 

 in the country which is now France, they hunted the 

 reindeer, and were familiar with the ways of the mam- 

 moth and the bison. The physical geography of France 

 was in those days different from what it is now the river 



25 Somme, for instance, having cut its bed a hundred feet 

 deeper between that time and this; and, it is probable, 

 that the climate was more like that of Canada or Siberia, 

 than that of Western Europe. 



The existence of these people is forgotten even in the 



30 traditions of the oldest historical nations. The name and 

 fame of them had utterly vanished until a few years 

 back; and the amount of physical change which has been 

 effected since their day, renders it more than probable 

 that, venerable as are some of the historical nations, the 



