278 MAN'S PLACE IN THE GEOLOGICAL BECOED. 



swerving ever so little from the straight rule of truth." In 

 investigating the antiquity of man we are dealing with a 

 question of natural history, and are "bound "by the same 

 methods of research as if we were treating of the history 

 of the mammoth or mastodon. Our business as geologists 

 is to examine the rock-formations composing the earth's 

 crust, to note their imbedded organisms, and to fix their 

 relative antiquities. Wherever the remains of man or of 

 his works occur, there, we presume, has been his presence ; 

 and though we cannot assign any definite date to the time 

 of such occurrence, we are at all events entitled, judging 

 from all the correlative circumstances, to say that it took 

 place more than six thousand, ten thousand, or twenty 

 thousand years ago. In other words, we are bound to deal 

 with Man's antiquity as with any other question in geo- 

 logy ; and though our dates be merely relative, we can 

 affirm the order of sequence, and arrive at some notion 

 of duration from the rate of existing operations. 



Abiding by these methods, we find the remains of man 

 and of his works gradually receding from the historical into 

 the pre-historic ages. In Southern and Western Europe 

 the only regions that have been examined with anything 

 like geological accuracy these remains occur in peat-mosses, 

 in lake-silts, river-drifts, and cave-earths, and from their 

 associated organisms we judge of their relative antiquities. 

 If they occur along with the remains of the existing horse, 

 ox, sheep, pig, and the like, we know that they are compa- 

 ratively recent, and in all probability belong to the historic 

 era. If, on the other hand, they are found accompanied by 

 remains of extinct species of horses and oxen, we know 

 they are of greater antiquity ; and if such horses and oxen 

 are not spoken of in history, or represented in human monu- 

 ments, then we are entitled to regard them as pre-historic. 

 Or again, if they are associated with remains of the great 



