JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. II 
The term pre-historic would vary with different regions of the 
earth. The different strata of the earth’s crust make a thickness of 
some 80,000 feet, showing the earth to be perhaps 20 million years 
old. No relics of man are found in the Eocene period, one or two 
in the Miocene. 
In the south of England a bit of rib marked in such a way as 
to show intelligence above that of the Ape was found. Belonging 
to the Pliocene period in Tuscany, one or two objects have been 
found. In 1894 in Java a series of bones, the top of a skull, thigh 
bones and a number of teeth, belonging, it is supposed, to the 
Anthropoid Ape, showing that it walked erect and had limbs re- 
sembling the human. This form of Ape is now extinct. The 
Anthropoid Ape is not the progenitor of man, but he may have 
known more than the ordinary Ape. ‘Then follows the Pleistocene 
period, characterised by glacial drifts, ice covering all the northern 
part of. Europe. In those times Great Britain and Ireland were 
joined with the Continent, and Italy was joined with Africa. 
France seems to have been the centre of civilization of this period, 
because its 300 or more caves that have been explored have fur- 
nished most of our pre-historic records. In Africa, also Somaliland, 
and the country stretching southwards, have proved a great store- 
house of relics, such as flint axes of beautiful workmanship and 
showing extraordinary skill. The drifting ice cut deep grooves in 
the soil, which were afterwards filled in with alluvial soil, so that 
relics have been found buried 4o or 50 feet deep. ‘The principal 
relics have been found in the Dardogne region. In a cave at the 
foot of the Pyrenees were found at the bottom chipped stone imple- 
ments and a skull. Overlying this was a great depth of limestone 
deposit which had gradually fallen from the roof, whilst high up in 
the cave were found polished stone implements and other skulls. 
And so we speak of the Paleolithic age and the Neolithic age, the 
advancement in skill in making the stone implements being very 
marked in the latter. In one cave was found an indication that man 
had reached a high state of civilization—a stone lamp with tarry 
material in it, which on analysis proved to be animal fat. The spout 
of the lamp was blackened by use. Earthenware vessels were also 
found. 
