BUCKLAND'S OPINIONS 15 



appearance of Man on the earth to be of recent date, 

 and subsequent to the disappearance of all the great 

 extinct Mammalia, such as the Mammoth, Woolly 

 Rhinoceros, and others. Human remains were sup- 

 posed to be confined to Alluvial deposits, peat-beds, 

 and similar beds now in course of formation. 



Dr. Buckland, the Oxford Professor of Geology, 

 shared in these opinions, and in his classic work * he 

 asserted that human remains had never been dis- 

 covered with those of the extinct Mammalia, and 

 that they were only to be found in beds of low 

 antiquity. He concluded that " the human race had 

 not established themselves in those countries where 

 the animals under consideration have hitherto been 

 found, in the period preceding the grand inundation 

 by which they (the animals) were destroyed." These 

 observations are the more singular, because he him- 

 self gives several instances in which human remains 

 had been found in caves and fissures in association 

 with the Quaternary Mammalia. In one instance he 

 mentions them as having been found in a 

 fissure at a depth of twenty-six feet from the surface, 

 and eight feet under bones of Ehinoceros. He con- 

 sidered, however, that this association arose from the 

 circumstance that the animal remains had been 

 washed down from higher levels and become mixed 

 with the human remains during the Alluvial period. 

 The association in caves was in the same way sup- 

 posed to be due to some later disturbance. His con- 

 viction and that of his contemporaries on this subject 

 1 Reliquiae D&uvianas, 2nd Edition, 1824. 



