616 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



FOSSIL MAN.* 



BY JOHN G. ROTHERMEL. 



TTTITHIN a comparatively short time our knowledge of man' g 

 V existence upon the earth has been greatly increased. By 

 the aid of monuments, language, man's handicraft in stone, brass, 

 bronze, and iron in constructing implements of warfare and hus- 

 bandry, the anthropologist has been able to classify prehistoric 

 man into ages namely, the chipped stone or palaeolithic, the pol- 

 ished stone or neolithic, the brass, the bronze, and the iron ages. 



The purpose of this paper is to deal with the evidence of the 

 earliest of these. The records are to be found in Nature's infal- 

 lible history of the world's development printed on pages of rock 

 in fossil type. In order that those present not conversant with 

 geology may more clearly understand what is to follow, it will 

 perhaps be well to briefly explain the order and arrangement of 

 these pages of rock. 



To carry out the simile, we might say that this great history is 

 written in three volumes the first and earliest called Palaeozoic 

 or Primary ; the second, Mesozoic or Secondary ; and the third, 

 Kainozoic or Tertiary. The first volume, or Palaeozoic, is divided 

 into three books, each book treating of the flora and fauna which 

 existed at the time of which it speaks. The first book is called 

 Silurian, and treats of that part of the age when invertebrates 

 predominated ; the second, Devonian, and treats of that part of 

 the age when fishes predominated ; the third, Carboniferous, and 

 treats of that part of the age when coal plants predominated. 

 The second volume, or Mesozoic, is a record of the times when 

 reptiles predominated. The third volume, Kainozoic, is a record 

 of the times when mammals predominated. 



It must be understood that there is no clear-cut line of demar- 

 cation separating the life of these ages, some of the forms of the 

 earliest existing to-day, others having become extinct, the orders 

 of life named with each age being simply the predominating life 

 of the period. All these periods are divided into many minor 

 subdivisions. Man being a mammal, we are, however, interested 

 only in the subdivisions of the Kainozoic or Tertiary. This 

 period, beginning with the earliest, is divided into Eocene, Oligo- 

 cene, Miocene, Pliocene, and Post-Pliocene or Post-Tertiary, also 

 called Quaternary. For the purposes of this subject we are in- 

 terested mainly in the Post-Pliocene or Quaternary, which some 



* A lecture delivered May 12, 1893, in the Popular Course before the Academy of Nat- 

 ural Sciences, Philadelphia. 



