50 Primitive Man. 



upon the opposite side of which, in the same deposit, were 

 unearthed bones of species of mammals long since extinct, 

 was asserted to prove man's existence in the Pliocene ; but 

 the age of the deposit itself has been questioned, whether 

 Pliocene or early Quaternary. In 1863, the discovery of 

 carved flints in the Pliocene sands of Chartres was com- 

 municated to the French Institute ; and still further, in the 

 progress of the Geological Survey of Portugal, stone imple- 

 ments were found in the Pliocene beneath 1200 feet of 

 superincumbent rock. Without multiplying instances, for 

 which there is not space, the consensus of scientific author- 

 ity is strongly to the effect that man had appeared in the 

 latest Tertiary epoch.* 



But with the close of the Tertiary, and opening of the 

 Quaternary, all doubt ends. In the Post Pliocene, or 

 Pleistocene, the evidences crowd upon us, and from that 

 period the evolution of man in physical and social con- 

 ditions may be traced, not, indeed, with entire accuracy, 

 but with reasonable certainty. Considering, for a moment, 

 the geological character of the epoch, as necessary to 

 account for the localities of origin and successive migra- 

 tions of primeval man, we note that the conformation of 

 the European continent was, substantially, as at present. 

 It is asserted that, during the Pliocene, inland seas extended 

 from the eastern portion of the Baltic to the Persian Gulf, 

 and from the Caspian to the Arctic, thus allowing the 

 warmer southern currents of the Indian ocean to modify 

 the severer climate of Scandinavia and Russia. Professor 

 Geikie claims that these seas disappeared early in the 

 Pliocene, thereby reducing the temperature of Northern 

 Europe. By the close of the Pliocene the climate of 

 Northern Europe generally had become considerably colder. 

 Throughout the early Pleistocene we therefore have remark- 

 able alternations of climate, precisely how many is unknown, 

 but heralding the approach of the long Glacial Epoch, or 

 constituting interglacial epochs, of which two at least are 

 generally admitted. The proofs of these successive warm- 

 ings and coolings are found in the curious intermixture of 

 fossil remains in the deposits of the Pleistocene. With 

 the remains of mammals i)eculiar to present tropical areas, 

 viz., the lion, leopard, elephant, etc., we find bones of 



Further evidences are collated in Prof. E. I). Cope's Lecture on "The 

 Descent of Man," Brooklyn Etliical Association "Evohition Essays," p. 163. 



