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any particular tlieor}' But, lookinj^ to the laborious researches 

 of scientific men in Europe on this question; to the lucid 

 exposition of the subject by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John 

 Lubbock, and lastly to the startling i)arallel between the position 

 of the South African implements and those found in the ancient 

 gravels of the Somme, two broad conclusions Avith reference to 

 them are forced upon us. Fistly that they are undoubtedly 

 the handiwork of man. Secondly that they belong to an age of 

 high and remote antiquity. Admitting then the high antiquity 

 of man upon the earth, in what way does it affect that vast 

 problem of evolution as applied to the origin of man. To this 

 question Darwin himself makes answer. He says in his 

 introduction to " The Descent of Man.": — " The high antiquity 

 of man has recently been demonstrated by the labours of a lot 

 of eminent men, beginning with M. Boucher de Perthes, and 

 this is the indespensable l)asis for understanding his origin." 

 The crudeness of design and rudeness of execution of the older 

 stone implements often excites the ridicule of the gaping 

 curiosity critic. But what degree of skill would he be inclined 

 to attribute to the forefathers of the Bushmen or Australian 

 aborignes twenty thousand years ago ? Prof. Huxley one of 

 the greatest living authorities on Biology, has expressed it as 

 his opinion that the remains of the immediate pi'ogenitors of 

 man will eventually be found in the Pliocene or even in 

 the Miocene Strata. In several parts of the world by different 

 geologists the postpliocene formations have been estimated to 

 be considerably over two hundred thousand years old. Taking 

 these oi)inions, then, with as far as it goes the confirmatory 

 evidence of the stone age, we may fairly assume that in all 

 probability man's immediate progenitors existed upon tho 

 earth considerably over two liundred thousand years ago. 

 Amongst Englishmen, the third generation of descendants from 

 an}' son of the soil is considered capable of producing under 

 favourable circumstances tlie most polished courtier. I there- 



