596 PKIMEVAL MAN, 



a species which, also, lias been long extinct in Europe. The 

 inferences drawn from, the whole case were, that the cavern, 

 originally full of alluvial matter, had been cleared out by 

 physical changes involved in upheavement, or other altera- 

 tion of level, with the exception of the solidified portion im- 

 mediately in contact with the ceiling. Following up the 

 investigation afterwards, strong presumptive proof came out 

 that the date of man's occupation, in the savage state, of 

 Sicily went back to a period extremely remote, as compared 

 with accepted chronology, Biblical or profane, when the 

 Mediterranean was bridged over by land connecting Sicily 

 with Africa as a promontory of that continent. The evidence 

 upon this head will be considered in a subsequent chapter. 1 

 Soon after the date of this communication another branch of 

 the evidence, proving the remote antiquity of the human race, 

 the agitation of which arose out of these cave investigations, 

 was launched into discussion among geologists. To this part 

 of the subject I shall now briefly refer. 



VIII. 



In September of 1856 I made the acquaintance of my 

 distinguished friend M. Boucher de Perthes, on the intro- 

 duction of M. Desnoyers at Paris, when he presented to me 

 the earlier volume of his ' Antiquites Celtiques,' &c, with 

 which I thus became acquainted for the first time. I was 

 then fresh from my examination of tbe Indian fossil remains 

 of the Valley of the Jumna ; and the antiquity of the hu- 

 man race being a subject of interest to both, we conversed 

 freely about it, each from a different point of view. M. de 

 Perthes invited me to visit Abbeville, in order to examine 

 his antediluvian collection, fossil and archaeological, gleaned 

 from the Valley of the Somme. This I was unable to accom- 

 plish then, but I reserved it for a future occasion. 



In October 1858, having determined to proceed to Sicily, 

 I arranged by correspondence with M. Boucher de Perthes, 

 to visit Abbeville on my journey through France. I was at 

 the time in constant communication with Mr. Prestwich 

 about the proofs of the antiquity of the human race yielded 

 by the Brixham Cave, in which he took a lively interest ; 

 and I engaged to communicate to him the opinions at which 

 I should arrive, after my examination of the Abbeville col- 

 lection. M. de Perthes gave me the freest access to his 

 materials, with unreserved explanation of all the facts con- 

 nected with the case that had come under his observation ; 

 and having considered his Menchecourt Section, taken with 

 such scrupulous care, 2 and identified the molars of Elephas 



1 See antea, pp. 552, 559. — [Ed.] I Celtiques,' tome i. p. 234, was made by 



2 The section in question, ' Antiquites | M. Bavin. 



