248 FOSSIL MEN. 



of the stumbling-blocks of which is the recent appear- 

 ance of man, along with an exaggerated and unreason- 

 able application of the doctrine of uniformitarianism 

 in geology. Such reasons are, I think, quite sufficient 

 to account for the swing of opinion in this direction. 

 But there are already indications of a reaction. 



It is a curious conclusion of this part of our inquiry 

 that the history of man, as indicated by Lyell in the 

 above table, presents, after all, such a striking paral- 

 lelism with the sacred and traditional histories with 

 which we have long been familiar. The second period 

 of continental elevation is the equivalent of the early 

 antediluvian times a period, however, of which we 

 have seen we really know little from archaeology or 

 geology, for they cannot, with absolute certainty, 

 affirm that the oldest skeletons known are of this age, 

 though this may be regarded as probable. If they are, 

 their extreme rarity, and the paucity of works of art, 

 with the exception of flint implements in the chalk 

 districts, where this material abounds, give the im- 

 pression not of a long, but of a very limited period of 

 residence of antediluvian man in Europe. The period 

 of continental oscillation is the correlative of the later 

 antediluvian period, and the last of these oscillations 

 may have been the traditional deluge. The last 

 period is unquestionably that of the Post-diluvian 

 world. A leading school of modern archaeologists no 

 doubt demands much more time than that of our 

 ordinary chronology, but the succession is the same. 

 Further, this succession, when critically examined, 



