xlvi 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



distinguishable from the living ' Hoonuman ' Monkey of the 

 Hindoos. Coupling these facts with the occurrence of the 

 camel, giraffe, horse, crocodiles, &c., in the Sewalik fauna, and 

 with the further important fact that the plains of the Valley of 

 the Ganges had undergone no late submergence, and passed 

 through no stage of glacial refrigeration, to interrupt the 

 previous tranquil order of physical conditions. Dr. Falconer 

 was so impressed with the conviction that the human race 

 might have been early inhabitants of India, that he was con- 

 stantly on the look out for the upturning of the relics of man 

 or of his works, from the Miocene strata of the Sewalik Hills. 

 In April 1844 he wrote thus to his friend Captain Cautley : — 

 ' Joining the indication given by the Hindoo mythology with 

 the determined fact of the little Emys tecta having survived 

 from the Fossil period down to the present day, I have put 

 forward the opinion that the large Tortoise may have survived 

 also, and only become extinct within the human period. This 

 is a most important matter in reference to the history of man.' 

 The same view was publicly announced in 1844 at the Zoolo- 

 gical Society. • In the account of the gigantic fossil Tortoise, 

 which appeared in the joint names of Dr. Falconer and Cap- 

 tain Cautley, the palseontological and mythological bearings 

 of the case are summed up as follows : ' The result at which 

 we have arrived is, that there are fair grounds for entertain- 

 ing the belief that the Colossochelys Atlas may have lived down 

 to an early epoch of the human period and become extinct 

 since.' Ten years later, while investigating the fossil remains 

 of the Jumna, he pointed out that they were ' most promising 

 of resvilts bearing upon the human period.' ^ 



In May, 1858, having the same inquiry in view, while occu- 

 pied with his Cave researches, he communicated a letter to the 

 Council of the Geological Society, which suggested and led to 

 the exploration of the Brixham Cave, and the discovery in it of 

 flint-implements of great antiquity associated with the bones 

 of extinct animals. In conjunction with Professor Eamsay 

 and Mr. Pengelly he drew up a report on the subject, which, 

 communicated in September of the same year to the Councils 

 of the Eoyal and Geological Societies, excited the interest of 



' See vol. i. p. 366. 



^ Preface to descriptive Cat. of Fossils 



in the Museum of the Asiatic Society of 

 Bengal, 1856, p. 7. 



