22 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



oldest traces of man, and probably these are nearer 

 in age to the smaller than to the larger number. 



If the reader will take the trouble to draw on 

 paper a scale of twenty inches, each of these will 

 represent a million of years of the earth's history, and 

 the known duration of the human period may be 

 indicated by a thickish line at one end of the scale. 

 We may thus represent to the eye the recency of 

 man's appearance, so far as at present known to 

 science. 



It may be said that all this is mere assertion. It 

 fairly represents, however, the conclusions reached on 

 the latest geological evidence, though this evidence 

 would demand for its full detail a larger space than 

 the whole of this little volume. References are given 

 below to works in which this evidence will be found. 1 



It may also be objected that if, as held by some 

 evolutionists, man was slowly developed from lower 

 animals, and if his earliest known remains are still 

 human in their characters, he must have had a vastly 

 longer history covering the periods of his gradual 

 change from, say, ape-like forms. This is admitted ; 

 but then we have as yet no good evidence that man 

 was so developed, and no remains of intermediate 

 forms are yet known to science. Even should some 

 animal, either recent or fossil, be discovered inter- 

 mediate in structure between man and the highest 

 apes, we should still require proof that it was the 



1 Lyell's Students* Manual ; Dana's Manual ; Prestwich's Geology j 

 The Story of the Earth, by the author. 



