Sept. 6, 1888] 



NATURE 



45i 



Wasatch Bridger and Uinta strata contain representatives of the 

 orders Cheiroptera and Insectivora, the suborders Artio- and 

 Perissodactyla, and the families Vespertilionidas and Tapiridae ; 

 but no living genera. 1 The Mammalia are obviously in the 

 same stage of evolution as in the Eocenes of Europe, although 

 there are but few genera, and no species common to the two. 



The White River and Loup Fork groups present us with the 

 living genera Seiurus, Castor, Hyslrix, RJiiuoccros, Dicotyles, 

 and others ; but no living species, as is the case with the 

 Miocenes of Europe. In the Pliocenes of Oregon the first 

 living species appear, such as the Beaver, the Prairie Wolf, and 

 two Rodents ( Thomomys clusiiis and T. talpoides), while in the 

 Pleistocene river deposits and caves, from Eschscholtz Bay in 

 the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south, there is the same 

 grouping of living with extinct species as in Europe, and the 

 same evidence in the glaciated regions that the Mammalia 

 occupied the land after the retreat of the ice. 



If we analyze the rich and abundant fauna yielded by the 

 caves and river deposits both of South America and of Australia, 

 it will be seen that the Pleistocene group in each is marked by 

 the presence of numerous living species in each, the first being 

 remarkable for their gigantic extinct Edentata, and the second 

 for their equally gigantic extinct Marsupials. 



The admirable work of Mr. Lydekker allows us also to see 

 how these definitions apply to the fossil Mammalia of India. 

 The Miocene fauna of the Lower Sivaliks has yielded the living 

 genera Rhinoceros and Manis, and no living species. 



The fauna of the Upper Sivaliks, although it has only been 

 shown, and that with some doubt, to contain one living 

 Mammal, the Nilghai {Boselaphns tragocanuliis), stands in the 

 same relation to that of the Oriental Region as that of the 

 Pliocenes of Europe to that of the Palaearctic Region, and is 

 therefore Pliocene. And lastly, the Narbada formation presents 

 us with the fust traces of Palaeolithic Man in India in association 

 with the living one-horned Rhinoceros, the Nilghai, the Indian 

 Buffalo, two extinct Hippopotami, Elephants, and others, and is 

 Pleistocene. 



It may be objected to the Prehistoric and Historic divisions of 

 the Tertiary period that neither the one nor the other properly 

 fall within the domain of geology. It will, however, be found 

 that in tracing the fauna and flora from the Eocene downwards 

 to the present day there is no break which renders it possible to 

 stop short at the close of the Pleistocene. The living plants 

 and animals were in existence in the Pleistocene age in every 

 part of the world which has been investigated. The European 

 Mollusca were in Europe in the Pliocene age. The only 

 difference between the Pleistocene fauna, on the one hand, and 

 the Prehistoric, on the other, consists in the extinction of certain 

 of the Mammalia at the close of the Pleistocene age in the Old 

 and New Worlds, and in Australia. The Prehistoric fauna in 

 Europe is also cha'acterized by the introduction of the ancestors 

 of the present domestic animals, some of which, such as the 

 Celtic shorthorn {Bos longifrons), sheep, goat, and domestic 

 hog, reverted to a feral condition, and have left their remains in 

 caves, alluvia, and peat-bogs over the whole of the British Isles 

 and the Continent. These remains, along with those of Man in 

 the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron stages of culture, mark off the 

 Prehistoric from the Pleistocene strata. There is surely no 

 reason why a cave used by Palaeolithic Man should be handed 

 over to the geologist, while that used by men in the Prehistoric 

 age should be taken out of his province, or why he should be 

 asked to study the lower strata only in a given section, and leave 

 the upper to be dealt with by the archaeologist. In these cases 

 the ground is common to geo'ogy and archaeology, and the same 

 things, if they are looked at from the stand-point of the history 

 of the earth, belong to the first, and, if from the stand-point of 

 the history of Man, to the second. 



If, however, there be no break of continuity in the series of 

 events from the Pleistocene to the Prehistoric ages, still less is 

 there in those which connect the Prehistoric with the period 

 embraced by history. The historic date of a cave or of a bed 

 of alluvium is as clearly indicated by the occurrence of a coin as 

 the geological position of a stratum is defined by an appeal to a 

 characteristic fossil. The gradual unfolding of the present order 

 of things from what went before compels me to recognize the 

 fact that the Tertiary period extends down to the present day. 

 The Historic period is being recorded in the strata now being 



1 The genus Vesperugo has not been satisfactorily determined.— Cope, 

 "Report cf Gejl. Survey of the Territories: Tertiary Vertebrata," i., 



i8? 4 . 



formed, exactly in the same way as the other divisions of the 

 Tertiary have left their mark in the -crust of the earth, and 

 history is incomplete without an appeal to the geological record. 

 In the masterly outline of the destruction of Roman civilization 

 in Britain the historian of the English Conquest was obliged to 

 use the evidence, obtained from the upper strata, in caves which 

 had been used by refugees from the cities and villas ; and among 

 the materials for the future history of this city there are, to my 

 mind, none more striking than the proof, offered by the silt in 

 the great Roman bath, that the resort of crowds had become so 

 utterly desolate and lonely in the ages following the English 

 Conquest as to allow of the nesting of the wild duck. 



I turn now to the place of Man in the geological record, a 

 question which has advanced but little since the year 1864. Then, 

 as now, his relation to the glacial strata in Britain was in dis- 

 pute. It must be confessed that the question is still without a 

 satisfactory answer, and that it may well be put to " a suspense 

 account." We may, however, console ourselves with the reflec- 

 tion that the River-drift Man appears in the Pleistocene strata 

 of England, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Algiers, Egypt, 

 Palestine, and India along with Pleistocene animals, some of 

 which were pre-glacial in Britain. He is also proved to have 

 been post-glacial in Britain, and was probably living in happy, 

 sunny, southern regions, where there was no ice, and therefore 

 no Glacial period, throughout the Pleistocene age. 



It may further be remarked that Man appears in the geological 

 record where he might be expected to appear. In the Eocene 

 the Primates were represented by various Lemuroids {Adapts, 

 PPecrolemur, and others) in the Old and New Worlds. In the 

 Miocene the Simiadae {P)ryopithecits, Pliopithecus, Oreopithecus) 

 appear in Europe, while Man himself appears, along with the 

 living species of Mammalia, in the Pleistocene Age, both in 

 Europe and in India. 



The question of the antiquity of Man is inseparably connected 

 with the further question : " Is it possible to measure the lapse of 

 geological time in years ? " Various attempts have been made, 

 and all, as it seems to me, have ended in failure. Till we know 

 the rate of causation in the past, and until we can be sure that it 

 has been invariable and uninterrupted, I cannot see anything but 

 failure in the future. Neither the rate of the erosion of the land 

 by sub-aerial agencies, nor its destruction by oceanic currents, 

 nor the rate of the deposit of stalagmite or of the movement of 

 the glaciers, has as yet given us anything at all approaching a 

 satisfactory date. We only have a sequence of events recorded 

 in the rocks, with intervals the length of which we cannot 

 measure. We do not know the exact duration of any one geologi- 

 cal event. Till we know both, it is surely impossible to fix a date, 

 in terms of years, either for the first appearance of Man or for 

 any event outside the written record. We may draw cheques 

 upon " the bank of force" as well as "on the bank of time." 



Two of my predecessors in this chair, Dr. Woodward and 

 Prof. Judd, have dealt with the position of our science in relation 

 to biology and mineralogy. Prof. Phillips in 1864 pointed out 

 that the later ages in geology and the earlier ages of mankind 

 were fairly united together in one large field of inquiry. In 

 these remarks I have set myself the task of examining that side 

 of our rcience which looks towards history. My conception of 

 the aim and results of geology is that it should present a uni- 

 versal history of the various phases through which the earth and 

 its inhabitants have passed in the various periods, until ultimately 

 the story of the earth, and how it came to be what it is, is 

 merged in the story of Man and his works in the written records. 

 Whatever the future of geology may be, it certainly does not 

 seem likely to suffer in the struggle for existence in the scientific 

 renascence of the nineteenth century. 



NOTES. 



Major-General Prjevalsky started on Thursday last on his 

 fifth journey of exploration in Tibet, with the intention of pene- 

 trating, if possible, into Lhassa, the capital. The General, with 

 his officers and Cossacks, will this time take advantage of the 

 new Central Asian railway as far as Samarcand, whence they 

 will proceed to Semiretchinsk, and so to the Tibetan table-lands. 

 General Prjevalsky will, it is thought, on this occasion have the 

 best chance ever afforded him of entering the forbidden residence 

 of the Dalai Lama. 



