THE ADVENT OF MAN. 



245 



that it exterminated so many animals of both continents which 

 had survived the Glacial age. Similar testimony is borne by 

 the occurrence of the implements and remains of Palaeocosmic 

 men in gravels and in diluvial clays in caverns, and by the 

 changes of level and deep erosions of valleys that are referable 

 to the close of the Palaeocosmic age. The most probable 

 agencies in this revolution were subsidences of the land, ac- 

 companied with climatal changes ; but the precise nature and 

 extent of these is still unknown ; and the prevalent tendency 

 on the part of geologists to stretch the doctrine of uniformity, 



Fig. iqo.— Flint Implements found in Kent's Cavern, Torquay, under four feet of 

 cave mud and one foot of stalagmite.— After Pengelly. 



so valuable within proper limits, to the absurd extreme of 

 excluding all changes not exemplified even in amount in the 

 modern period, will probably for some time prevent any 

 adequate conception of them. 



It would be premature to correlate what is yet knOwn of the 

 Palaeocosmic age with historical periods ; but the tendency of 

 the facts accumulated is, I think, toward the identification of 

 the Palseocosmic men with the Antediluvians ; and their Neo- 

 cosmic successors, whether of the reindeer age, of the Danish 



