A/ay 24, 1877] 



JVA TURE 



69 



pronounce those of the Pitury as derived from his Du- 

 boisia Hofiwoodii, described in 1861 {Fru'j^in. Pltyto'^r. 

 Austr. II., 138) This bush extends from the Darling 

 River and Barcoo to West Australia, through desert 

 scrubs, but is of exceedingly sparse occurrence anywhere. 

 In fixing the origin of the Pitury, a wide field for further 

 inquiry is opened up, inasmuch as a second species of 

 Di(boisia [D. myoporoides, R. Br^ extends in forest land 

 from near Sydney to near Cape York, and is traced also 

 to New Caledonia, and lately by him also to New Guinea. 

 In all probability this D. inyoporoidi's shares the proper- 

 ties of D. Hop'd'oodii, as he finds that both have the same 

 burning acrid taste. Baron Mueller adds : " Though the 

 first known species is so near to us, we never suspected 

 any such extraordinary properties in it as are now esta- 

 blished for the later discovered species. Moreover, the 

 numerous species of the allied genus ^Uitlioccrcis, extend- 

 ing over the greater part of the Australian continent and 

 to Tasmania, should now also be tasted, and further the 

 many likewise cognate Schtvciikeas of South America, 

 should be drawn into the same cyclus of research, nothing 

 whatever of the properties of any of these plants being 

 known. The natives of Central Australia chew the leaves 

 of Duboisia Hopivoodii, just as the Peruvians and Chilians 

 masticate the leaves of the CQCz.{EryiIi)oxy Ion Cocii),^o in- 

 vigorate themselves during their long foot journeys through 

 the deserts. I am not certain whether the Aborigines of 

 all districts in which the Pitury grows are really aware of 

 its stimulating power. Those living near the Barcoo 

 travel many days' journeys to obtain this, to them, 

 precious foliage, which is carried always about by them 

 broken into small fragments and tied up in little bags. 

 It is not improbable that a new and perhaps important 

 medicinal plant is thus gained. The blacks use the 

 Duboisia to excite their courage in warfare, a large dose 

 infuriates them." 



THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 



f~\ N Tuesday evening last a conference was held at the 

 ^-^ rooms of the Anthropological Institute on the Present 

 State of the (Question of the Antiquity of Man. The 

 chair was taken by the president, Mr. John Evans, F.R.S. 

 There were also present Lord Talbot de Malahide, Prof 

 Huxley, Prof Prestwich, Prof. RoUeston, Prof. Busk, 

 Prof Boyd Dawkins, Prof McK. Hughes, Rev. Prof. 

 Sayce, Mr. J. Hey wood. Col. Lane Fox, Mr. A. W. Mark;, 

 Capt. Douglas Galton, Rev. E. \V. Edgell, and many 

 other gentlemen. 



The President in opening the conference alluded to the altered 

 posilion of the question since it was first brought before the 

 Kritish public in 1859 and pointed out the extreme caution 

 which was necessary in dealing with the subject as it lay within 

 the domain of the archLeologist, the anthropologist, and the geolo- 

 gist, neither of whom alone was sufficient by himself to offer a very 

 strong opinion on the subject. Great care was also necessary with 

 regard to the facts of the discoveries themselves, as the objects 

 discovered were liable to get mixed with other objects below 

 them, and this was important in the case of cave deposits in 

 which there miglit be interments of a later date than the human 

 skeletons deposited in the caves. The question was now very 

 much within the province of the geologist, whose business it 

 was to determine the antiquity of the deposits in which the dis- 

 coveries may have been made. After alluding to several recent 

 discoveries in France, Spain, and Switzerland, the President 

 remarked that each successive discovery or presumed discovery 

 must be received in a cautious but candid spirit, and looking to 

 the many sources of doubt and error which attached to isolated 

 discoveries, their watchword must for the present be " caution, 

 caution, caution." 



The debate was opened by Prof. Boyd Dawkins by an 

 inquiry into the value of the evidence offered by the bone- 

 caves of Great Britain. The antiquity of man is not to 

 be measured by the system of cluronology used by the his- 



torian, but by the physical and biological changes familiar 

 to the geologist. Beyond historical record time past cannot 

 be estimated in terms of years, because of our ignorance of 

 the length of the intervals, and of the time necessary to pro- 

 duce the changes which mark the hour on the geological dial. 

 The caves of Cresswell Crags, recently brought before the Geo- 

 logical Society, were taken as types, showing the strange asso- 

 ciation of human implements and remains of animals. Bones 

 and teeth of species now found only in the south, such as the 

 spotted hyrena and lion, were lying side by side with those of 

 northern habit, such as the reindeer, while some are extinct, 

 such as the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, and others, such 

 as the stag, horse, and bison, still live in the temperate regions. 

 This mixed fauna is universal in British bone-caves, and in those 

 of France and Germany, and it cannot be accounted for by the 

 supposition of Messrs. James Geikie and Croll that the southern 

 animals inhabited Britain in a warm period inter-glacial, while 

 the northern were here at another time after, with an interval 

 between them of from 5,000 to 12,000 years ; not only because 

 they are closely associated together in the same strata, but be- 

 cause we have full proof that northern and southern species co- 

 existed at the same time on the same place, in the fact that the 

 reindeer formed an important portion of the prey of the hyxna. 

 It may, however, be accounted for by the overlapping of faunas 

 according to the ever-varying summer heat and winter cold over 

 what was then a vast continent, extending from Northern Africa 

 as far as the loo-fathom line off the coast of Scotland and Scan- 

 dinavia, The pal.-colithic man of the caves belongs to the 

 northern group of the pleistocene animals, and his remains 

 are therefore of late pleistocene age. This northern group 

 invaded Europe as the glacial cold came on, was pushed 

 doH-n as far south as the Mediterranean, the Alps, and 

 Pyrenees, as the ice-sheet advanced southwards, and on its 

 retreat passed again northwards. It therefore follows that they 

 are both pre- and post-glacial in Britain. Some caves have been 

 inhabited by man in post-glacial times, as, for example, that of 

 I'ont Newydd, near St. Asaph, but it does not follow that all 

 paLeoUthic caves are post-glacial. The Victoria Cave offers no 

 evidence as to the antiquity of man, because fibula found in 

 association with the pleistocene mammalia, and supposed to 

 be human, is most probably ursine. Further the relation of 

 the deposit in which it was found to the glacial strata of the dis- 

 trict is a matter of dispute. 



The facts brought forward by Mr. James Geikie, that all 

 pakcolithic remains are of earlier date than post-glacial times 

 may be interpreted otherwise. The "something like perpetual 

 summer " which he considers necessary for the presence of the 

 southern animals in the mixed fauna of the caves and of which 

 there is no trace in post-glacial times, is inconsistent with the 

 abundance of reindeer invariably associated with the palajolithic 

 remains of the caves. The barren areas in Great Britain, in 

 which no pleistocene species are found, may be reasonably ac- 

 counted for by the fact that they were covered v/ith ice, xvliih the 

 species were living in more glaciated regions in the south, than 

 by the view that they were equally distributed over the whole 

 area, and afterwards removed by ice fur the glaciated regions. 

 The glacial phenomena are no guide to age in non-glaciated dis- 

 trirts. In fine, the evidence of the caves is decisive that these 

 paheolithic inhabitants are of Ute pleistocene age, post-glacial, 

 and possibly pre-glacial, and glacial. 



Prof Hughes, after a few remarks on some foreign cases in 

 which man had been referred to periods more remote than was 

 generally included under the term glacial, commenced by ex- 

 plaining that in using the word glacial he meant the period in 

 which Conditions prevailed in the area in question such as must 

 have caused glacier ice, or in adjoining areas which, by supplying 

 berg or coast ice or influencing the climate, must have affected 

 the area in question. He then proceeded to criticise the cases 

 adduced from the neighbourhood of Brandon and Thetford. By 

 an appeal to sections he showed that the beds in which the flint 

 implements had been found were remains of valley deposits 

 resting on older deposits which he referred to the middle 

 glacial. 



He explained the various divisions of the middle glacial beds 

 and correlated them with deposits of the same age in Hertford- 

 shire, pointing out that there were several horizons at which 

 loams occurred. He then showed that the beds in which the 

 flint implements had been found rested upon various members of 

 the middle glacial series and occurred ia troughs and hollows 

 scooped out of tlie middle glacial beds. In the case of the 



