FAUM ANTIQUA SIVALENSIS. 



I. Il^TEODUCTION/ 



BT H. FALCONER, M.D. 



INTEODUCTORT OBSERTATIONS — ANTIQUITY OF HUMAN RACE IN INDIA 



ITS MYTHOLOGY— ANTIQUARUN CONDITION OF INDIA BEFORE MAN — ■ 



EVIDENCE AFFORDED BY ORGANIC REMAINS — HISTORY OF DISCOVERY OP 

 FOSSILS IN INDIA. 



The antiquities and literature of the East have been, from its 

 commencement, the special field of investigation to this So- 

 ciety, and to the parent institution in Calcutta. A rich vein 

 has been opened, branching in a thousand ramifications, and 

 fertile in results of the deepest interest. The human race 

 has been traced farther back into time in the East than in 

 any other quarter of the globe ; and the tendency of all in- 

 quiries has been to shovp that the civihzation of at least a 

 large section of mankind first dawned in the valley of the 

 Ganges. The language or the mythology, the arts and the 

 sciences of India, have all been found more or less engrafted 

 on surrounding nations, and even that civilization which we 

 now boast of — which has shot so far ahead of the parent stock 

 — may be followed back to a spring- head in India, whence it 

 traveUed westward through Egypt, and spread over Greece 

 and Italy. 



Nor is it remarkable that it should be so. Man, cceteris 

 paribus, must have progressed most rapidly where most 

 favourably placed in regard to the external conditions which 

 regulate the increase of his race and the development of his 

 social relations. ISTeither the vaUeys of the Nile, nor of 

 the Euphrates, Tigris, or Oxus, in extent and fertility to- 

 gether, or in the richness and variety of their productions. 



' This introduction is mainly based 

 on the manuscript of two discourses de- 

 livered by Dr. Falconer before the Eoyal 



India some years before; and Part C. has 

 been, in a great measure, constructed by 

 the Editor from private letters written by 



Asiatic Society of Great Britain, on June : Dr. Falconer, between the years 1 844 

 1 and 8, 1844, a very brief abstract of and 1847. This will account for the de 



which only appeared in the Journal of 

 the Society (No. xv. Pt. i. p. 107). Part 

 B., however, was probably written in 



VOL. I. B 



signations of several of the fossils being 

 diiFerentfrom those given in the published 

 abstract. — [Ed.] 



