ON BIOLOGY. 45 



expect, that is, a greater meagerness of 

 the record. No remains of bones of an- 

 cient men, and only a handful, comparatively 

 speaking, of somewhat doubtful specimens of his works. 

 These are principally roughly chipped flints, and bones of 

 animals showing some suspicious scratches; and, in truth, 

 such is the evidence in brief. Writing in ISiS, Le Cbnte 

 remarks: "The Miocene man is not acknowledged by a 

 single careful geologist." "Mr. 



Favre, reviewing the whole subject up to 1870, and, 

 again, Evans, President of the Geological Society of Lon- 

 don, reviewing the subject up to 187-5, and Dawkins in 

 1879, and Lubbock in 1881, decide that the existence of 

 Tertiary man is yet unproved." 



For myself I can only say, and influenced as I am by 

 the study of a large collection of fossils from the Pliocene 

 of Oregon, only recently completed, that my inclinations 

 lead me to believe that man did exist during the latter 

 part of the Tertiary, at leas'"-, and was probably in exist- 

 ence as a very low type of the genus Homo at a much 

 earlier date. As to how long man has existed upon earth 

 as man, geologists are at variance in their opinions, the 

 time ranging all the way from 7,000 to 100,000 years. 

 Evidence is not lacking, I think, to show .that the latter 

 is probably more nearly true than the former. Res- arches 

 in this most engaging field of all others open to man, are 

 being continually pushed with the greatest degree of 

 interest, and there can be no question that in the future 

 many important discoveries will be made, tending to 

 throw 'additional light upon the subject. 



It is nought to be surprised at, that the geological his- 

 tory of man is so thoroughly imperfect, and were it not 

 for his works that have been preserved in diiferent parts 

 of the earth, how vastly more imperfect that record 

 would be! Remove all that the archaeologist has brought 

 to light; bring down the pala3ontological history of man 

 to his bones alone, and *it would be represented 

 but by a few mutilated pages in a history of 

 many, manv volumes. He would then be com- 

 parable with other forms of vertebrates of the 

 great group of mammals to which he belongs, 

 and how meager, very meager, is the geological record 

 with some of them. Thousands upon thousands of mam- 

 mals, with histories extending through enormous lapses 

 of time, have existed, developed and become extinct upon 

 the earth, and absolutely left no palieontological history 

 at all. Many of those animals were undoubtedly of mas- 



