ON PPJMITIVE MAN : I. HIS TIMES AND HIS COMPANIONS. 237 



different: lie would have been, as M. Lapparent well expresses 

 it, '" an anachi'onism." It is true that M. de Quatrefages urges 

 that " theoretically man, who as regards liis body is neither 

 more nor less than a mammal, could have lived on the globe 

 as soon as this could furnish subsistence for mammalian life ; 

 man has also certain physiological faculties of adaptation to 

 liis surroundings, as well as his superior intelligence, which 

 might have enabled him to survive changes which were fatal 

 to most of his contemporaries.'" But, after all, what we must 

 do is to appeal to facts. If undoubted proofs of man's 

 existence in the Tertiary period are forthcoming Ave must 

 accept them, whatever may be the result, howcA'-er much 

 that result may clash Avith our old beliefs; but before doing 

 this, let us make sure that the alleged proofs are indubi- 

 table. 



What then is the nature of the so-called evidence brought 

 foi'Avard? As long ago as 1863, M. Desnoyers discovered 

 certain bones, amongst others one of the rhinoceros iu 

 Pliocene strata, at S. Prest, bearing incisions on their 

 surface, AAdiich he concluded to have been of human origin. 

 Other similar incised bones had been found at a still earliei' 

 date at Pouancy, by M. Delaunay, av1io pictures the primeval 

 savage cutting his Avay into the putrid carcase of a stranded 

 Halitherium, as the Australian aborigines are said to do to 

 this day Avhen a dead Avhale is found. 



Other incised bones have been discovered by M. Capellini 

 at Monte Aperto, in Italy. At S. Prest the Abbe 

 Bourgeois found certain flints, supposed to have been the 

 implements with Avhich such incisions could have been 

 made. Flints resembling more or less closely those known to 

 be shaped by man, as well as others which have been 

 calcmed, liaA^e been brought from Thenay and elscAvhere, 

 from beds of Miocene age. At Otta, near Lisbon, M. Carlos 

 Ribeiro, and M. Rames, at Puy-Courny, near Aurillac, profess 

 to have discovered other flint implements of Miocene ago, 

 concerning which M. de Mortillet and M. Quatrefages said 

 that, out of a large number sent to Paris, some bore 

 undoubted traces of having been intentionally^ worked. 

 A few years ago M. Gels brought forAvard a number of broken 

 flints from the Eocene beds of S. Symj)horien near Spiennes 

 in Belgium, in Avhich he thought marks of design Avei'e 

 evident. Again, other supposed relics of Tertiary man liaA^e 

 been produced from Castenedolo, near Brescia, by M. Serpi, 

 and from California by Mr. Whitney, also from the Pampas 



