Of Western Europe. 



ing and others sinking — find existing phenomena suf- 

 ficient, if lapse of time enough is allowed, and des^- 

 nate ages by the nature of the remains found in them. 

 Sir Charles Lyell and others, noticing that different 

 strata of the tertiary formation contain different pro- 

 portions of extinct and still living species, have divided 

 that formation, accordingly, into three periods — eocene, 

 miocene, and pliocene. Giving the name post-tertiary 

 to all subsequent to the tertiary, they still find in some 

 of the post-tertiary formations remains of animals now 

 extinct. To this portion of the post-tertiary they give 

 the name of post-pliocene. The other, which contains 

 only the remains of animals now existing, they call re- 

 cent. Hence it is in this formation, by whatever name 

 we call it, whether diluvium, quaternary, drift, or post- 

 pliocene, that the geologist must find human remains 

 before he can show us fossil man. 



In the museum in Paris is a petrified skeleton of a 

 woman imbedded in a calcareous rock, found in the 

 island of Guadaloupe. But this rock is still in process 

 of formation. The sea washing up shells, with detritus 

 of the rock of the island, forms a conglomerate, in 

 which all the shells are such as now live on the shore, 

 and the skeleton appears to belong to the Carib tribe, 

 which inhabited the island at a recent date. 



In a peat-bog in Sweden was found the skeleton of 

 a bison, bearing marks of a wound made by a hatchet. 

 Near it was found a stone hatchet, which, on being ap- 

 plied, fitted the wound. Close at hand was a human 

 skeleton, the hunter and his prey imbedded together. 

 But the bison is not yet extinct; it still lives in the 

 Lithuanian forest, and peat still grows. 



