THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 219 



says Geikie (p. 301), " for determining the dur- 

 ation of the First, or Gunz-Mindel, Inter-glacial 

 epoch are not so ample all the evidence, how- 

 ever, leads to the belief that while not so long as 

 the second, it was much longer than the Third 

 Inter-glacial epoch. We may provisionally assume 

 its duration to have been about 100,000 years, 

 and we thus obtain 400,000 years for the first 

 three inter-glacial epochs, to which we may add 

 20,000 years to cover the interstadial stages of 

 post-Wurmian times." Then we have still to 

 allow for the glacial epochs themselves, and 

 according to Professor Geikie we must allow not 

 less than 200,000 years for these collectively, 

 which gives us a " minimum of 620,000 years for 

 the duration of Pleistocene times." And what 

 part of this belongs to the history of man ? 

 " Quite recently Professor Penck has expressed 

 the opinion that the Glacial period with all its 

 climatic changes may have extended over half a 

 million years, and as the Chellean stage dates 

 back to at least the middle of the period this 

 would give somewhere between 250,000 and 

 500,000 years for the antiquity of man in Europe. 

 But if, as recent discoveries would seem to in- 

 dicate, man was an occupant of our Continent 

 during the First Inter-glacial epoch, if not in 

 still earlier times, we may be compelled greatly 

 to increase our estimate of his antiquity " (Geikie, 

 pp. 302-3). Before turning to the more moderate 

 geologists for their views we may ask the follow- 

 ing question, which cannot fail to occur to any- 

 one thinking over the facts which have been 



