TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 649 



And lastly, the Narbada formation presents us with the first traces of Palseolithic 

 Man in India in association with the living one-horned Ithinoceros, theNilghai, the 

 Indian Buffalo, two extinct Hippopotami, Elephants, and others, and is Pleistocene. 



It may be objected to the Prehistoric and Historic divisions of the Tertiary 

 Period that neither the one nor the other properly falls within the domain of 

 Geology. It will, however, be found that in tracing the fauna and flora from the 

 Eocene downwards to the present day there is no break which renders it possible to 

 stop short at the close of the Pleistocene. The living plants and animals were in 

 existence in the Pleistocene Age in every part of the world which has been investi- 

 gated. The European Mollusca were in Europe in the Pleiocene Age. The only 

 difference between the Pleistocene fauna, on the one hand, and the Prehistoric, on 

 the other, consists in the extinction of certain of the Mammalia at the close of 

 the Pleistocene Age in the Old and New Worlds, and in Australia. The Prehistoric 

 fauna iu Europe is also characterised by the introduction of the ancestors of the 

 present domestic animals, some of which, such as the Celtic shorthorn {£os 

 longifrons), sheep, goat, and domestic hog, reverted to a feral condition, and have 

 left their remains in caves, alluvia, and peat-bogs over the whole of the British 

 Isles and the Continent. These remains, along with those of Man in the neolithic, 

 bronze, and iron stages of culture, mark off the Prehistoric from the Pleistocene 

 strata. .There is surely no reason why a cave used by paljeolithic Man should be 

 handed over to the geologist, while that used by men in the Prehistoric Age should 

 be taken out of his province, or why he should be asked to study the lower strata 

 only in a given section, and leave the upper to be dealt with by the archreologist. 

 In these cases the ground is common to geology and archaeology, and the same 

 things, if they are looked at from the standpoint of the history of the earth, 

 I)elong to the firsl, and, if from the standpoint of the history of Man, to the second. 



If, however, there be no break of continuity in the series of events from the 

 Pleistocene to the Prehistoric ages, still less is there in those which connect the 

 Prehistoric with the period embraced by history. The historic date of a cave or of 

 a bed of alluvium is as clearly indicated by the occurrence of a coin as the 

 geological position of a stratum is defined by an appeal to a characteristic fossil. 

 The gradual unfolding of the present order of things from what went before 

 compels me to recognise the fact that the Tertiarj' I'eriod extends down to the 

 present day. The Historic Period is being recorded in the strata now being formed, 

 exactly in the same way as the other divisions of the Tertiary have left their mark 

 in the crust of the earth, and history is incomplete without an appeal to the 

 geological record. In the masterly outline of the destruction of Roman civilisation 

 in Britain the historian of the English Conquest was obliged to use the evidence, 

 obtained from the upper strata, in caves which had been used by refugees from the 

 cities and villas ; and among the materials for the future history of this city there 

 are, to my mind, none more striking than the proof, offered by the silt in the great 

 Roman bath, that the resort of crowds had become so utterly desolate and lonely 

 in the ages following the English Conquest as to allow of the nesting of the wild duck. 



I turn now to the place of Man in the geological record, a question which has ad- 

 vanced but little since the year 1864. Then, as now, his relation to the glacial strata 

 in Britain was in dispute. It must be confessed that the question is still without a 

 satisfactory answer, and that it may well be put to ' a suspense account.' We may, 

 however, console ourselves with the reflection that the River-drift Man appears 

 in the Pleistocene strata of England, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Algiers, Egypt, 

 Palestine, and India along with Pleistocene animals, some of which were pre- 

 glacial in Britain. He is also proved to have been post-glacial in Britain, and was 

 probably living in happy, sunny, southern regions, where there was no ice, and 

 therefore no glacial period, throughout the Pleistocene Age. 



It may further be remarked that Man appears in the geological record where 

 he might be expected to appear. In the Eocene the Primates were represented by 

 various Lemuroids {Adapis, Necrolemur, and others) in the Old and New Worlds. 

 In the Meiocene the Simiadae {Dryopifjiecus, Pliopithecus, Oreopithecus) appear in 

 Europe, while Man himself appears, along with the living species of Mammalia, in 

 the Pleistocene Age, both in Europe and in India. 



