GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES 



OF 



THE AN^TIQUITY OF MAK 



CHAPTER L 



INTRODUCTORY. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE SUBJECTS TREATED OF IN THIS WORK 



DEFINITION OF THE TERMS RECENT, POST-PLIOCENE, AND POST-TER- 

 TIARY TABULAR VIEW OF THE ENTIRE SERIES OF FOSSILIFEROUS 



STRATA. 



l^TO subject has lately excited more curiosity and general 

 ■-^^ interest among geologists and the iDublic than the 

 question of the Antiquity of the Human Eace, — whether or 

 no we have sufficient evidence in caves, or in the superficial 

 deposits commonly called drift or " diluvium/' to prove the 

 former co-existence of man with certain extinct mammalia. 

 For the last half-century, the occasional occurrence, in va- 

 rious parts of Europe, of the bones of man or the works of 

 his hands, in cave-breccias and stalactites, associated with the 

 remains of the extinct hyena, bear, elephant, or rhinoceros, 

 has given rise to a suspicion that the date of man must be 

 carried further back than we had heretofore imagined. On' 

 the other hand, extreme reluctance was naturally felt, on the 

 part of scientific reasoners, to admit the validity of such 



