40 Reviews — SouthalVs Recent Origin of Man, 



tliose of 40,000 horses, associated with stone implements of all ages 

 and fashions. Here we have the man of both periods in full life and 

 in death. The similar admixture in a cave at Gourdan also points to 

 a gradual transition from the very first traces of Somme-valley life 

 conditions down to the historic era. 



Next we arrive at the river- valley gravels, confessedly the most 

 difficult portion of the inquir}^ Mr. Southall first disposes of the 

 peat in 2000 years, by the aid of canoes, bricks, and Roman remains. 

 Then he is faced by the sub-lying beds of sand and rolled pebbles 

 containing the mammalian remains with the rough flint implements. 

 He adduces Mr. Alfred Tylor's calculations as to the forces of his 

 pluvial period ; quotes Belgrand to testify that the Palaeolithic period 

 passed rapidly away, and was succeeded by peat ; and so brings down 

 the dawn of the gravels to a few thousand years antecedent to the 

 latter. The weak part of this argument is that it does not account 

 for the great changes of level that we are told have occurred since 

 or during the deposit of the gravels and the bm-ying of the imple- 

 ments. Nor does it explain the fractures, displacements and replace- 

 ments of the post-human period. The glacial rushes allowed by 

 Sir Charles Lyell, the pluvial torrents of Mr. Tylor, the ocean incur- 

 sions hinted at by Mr. Southall, will not account for all the pheno- 

 mena, — even allowing Mr. Prestwich's opinion as to the formation of 

 the valleys out of the chalk by large streams during the early human 

 period, — in any time consistent with the Usherian chronology, unless 

 we evoke the aid of great crust disturbances since the visits of 

 Palgeolithic man and before the advent of his historical successor. 

 If such a period of comparative cataclysm can be established, on the 

 evidence of the Straits of Dover and analogous appearances, then 

 the advocates of the short chronology may boldly bring in their 

 theory as one of geological probability. 



In discussing the question, — When did the Mammoth live ? or, 

 rather, — When did he die out ? much stress is laid upon the very 

 few instances of its bones found in the peat, as well as on the con- 

 dition of the remains in Siberia. It is affirmed that there is every 

 mark of '' recency" in connexion with these remains all over the 

 world. Much also is made of the instances in which Palseolithic 

 implements have been found lying together with Neolithic and bronze 

 manufactures. Mr. Southall, without invalidating the succession 

 assumed by Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Evans, and others, yet shows 

 such overlapping as practically to annihilate the theory as a measure 

 of general time. Certainly rude unpolished flints are found with 

 polished stone, and both with bronze, and all with iron ; but this 

 fact is capable of the interpretation that relics of one period were still 

 extant in the succeeding age, and that it is in the predominance and 

 ultimate exclusive use that we are to look for the true index of events. 

 Mr. Southall quotes Mr. E. B. Tylor as his authority for the illusory 

 nature of the common divisions. He affirms that inasmuch as the 

 Glacial Period in Scotland and Denmark lasted down to the polished- 

 stone age, it is fair to argue that the Somme-valley deposits, belonging 

 to the last glaciation, may not be very ancient. The most valuable 



