BIMANA. 



ON THE DATE OF MAN'S EXISTENCE ON THE SURFACE OF THE GLOBE. 



WHILE the researches of geologists accumulate proofs of the antiquity 

 of our planet, and of a long series of revolutions, by which its surface 

 has become modified; while they teach us, by appealing to the silent 

 language of their reliquia, that races of organic beings have tenanted the 

 globe, previously to the existence of our continents and islands, at a time 

 when its surface exhibited a condition, of which we can form only a 

 plausible conjecture, but of which these relics are the faithful records ; 

 while they convince us that successive eras have taken place, and, on the 

 fragments recovered from the buried Herculaneum of Nature, enable us 

 to decipher the hieroglyphics which announce the progress of creation, 

 they assure us that Man is but of recent date, the ultimate of animals called 

 into life and being. It would appear to be now well established, that, in 

 none of the older strata, in none of what are termed secondary formations, 

 in none of the tertiary formations, in none of the regular strata of the globe, 

 do the fossil relics of Man occur. In the beds, which contain the remains 

 of ancient races, the types of forms blotted out of creation, even in the de- 

 posits containing the bones of Elephants and Rhinoceroses, which have now 

 their living representatives, we search in vain for the fossil remains of our 

 species. Once, indeed, the huge bones of extinct animals were regarded as 

 human, and philosophers speculated upon the stature of a race more mighty 

 than the Anakim, of which these were deemed the relics, an error, at which 

 we now smile. " Many of the labourers," says Cuvier, " in the gypsum 

 quarries about Paris, believe, that the bones, which occur so abundantly 

 in them, are, in a great measure, human ; but I have seen thousands of 

 these bones, and I t may safely affirm, that not one of them has ever 

 belonged to our species. I have examined, at Pavia, the groups of bones 

 brought, by Spallanzani, from the island of Cerigo ; and, notwithstanding 

 the assertion of that celebrated observer, I affirm, also, that there is not 

 one among them that could be shewn to be human." 



It is not, however, affirmed, or pretended, that no fossil relics of Man 

 have been found, or may be found, for the existence of such is as- 

 certained ; but they do not occur in such formations, or under such 

 conditions, as indicate his contemporary existence with the Palseotheria, 

 the Anaplotheria, or the Dinotheria, the Mammoths and the Mastodons ; 

 and their situation is such as to corroborate the deduction, from other 

 proofs, that Man is a new, and, geologically speaking, a recent denizen of 

 the surface of our planet. 



The most remarkable fossil remains of our species are those which 

 occur in a tufaceous deposit, of modern date, and daily increasing, in the 

 island of Guadaloupe : a fine specimen of an almost entire skeleton, im- 



