GENERAL NATURE OF THE SUBJECT 17 



relics of man and his works preserved in the earth. 

 We shall then be in a position to inquire as to the 

 form in which the same chain of events is presented 

 to us by history and tradition, and to discover the 

 leading points in which the two records agree or 

 appear to differ. 



It may be necessary here to define a few terms. 

 The two latest of the great geological periods may be 

 termed respectively the pleistocene and the modern, 

 or anthropic, the latter being the human period or 

 age of man. The pleistocene includes what has been 

 called the glacial age, a period of exceptional cold 

 and of much subsidence and elevation of the land, in 

 the northern hemisphere at least. The modern, or 

 anthropic, is for our present purpose divisible into 

 two sections the early modern, or palanthropic, 

 sometimes called quaternary, or post-glacial, and 

 which may coincide with the antediluvian period of 

 human history ; and the neanthropic, extending on- 

 ward to the present time. 1 



1 The terms ' Palaeolithic ' and ' Neolithic ' have been used for the 

 men of the Palanthropic and Neanthropic ages ; but these are objec- 

 tionable, as implying that these ages can be best distinguished by the 

 use of certain stone implements, which is not the fact. I have pre- 

 ferred, therefore, to call the earlier races of men palaocosmic, and the 

 later neocosmic^ where it may be necessary to refer to them as races ; 

 while the periods to which they belong are respectively the Palanthropic 

 and Neanthropic* By the use of these terms all ambiguity will be 

 avoided. 





ttHWT"*'. ,fte^^""* 



(iUf^it***, 0r fr4/Litrt~>**+<~*-J I ' - 



V / X I >V/ > .- *V7/> xV">C 



