THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 115 



To these questions Sir Charles addresses himself, with all his vast 

 knowledge of facts relating to tertiary geology, and his great power 

 of generalisation ; and he has, for the first time, enabled those not in 

 the centre of the discussions which have for a few years been 

 carried on upon this subject, to form a definite judgment on the 

 geological evidence of the antiquity of our species. 



As a necessary preliminary, Sir Charles inquires as to the recent 

 remains of man, including those which are pre-historic in the 

 sense of antedating secular history, but which do not go back to 

 the period of the extinct mammalia. He refers in the first place 

 to the detailed researches of the Danish antiquaries, respecting 

 •certain remains in heaps of oyster-shells, found on the Danish 

 coast, (which appear to be precisely similar to those heaps accumu- 

 lated by the American Indians on our coasts from Prince Edward 

 Island to Georgia) ; and respecting similar remains found in peat 

 bogs in that country. These remains show three distinct stages 

 of unrecorded human history in Denmark: — 1st. A stone 'period, 

 when the inhabitants were small sized men, brachykephalous or 

 short headed men, like the modern Lapps, using stone implements, 

 and subsisting by hunting. Then the country, or a consider- 

 able part of it was covered by forests of Scotch fir (Pinus Syl- 

 vestris). 2nd. A bronze period, in which implements of bronze as 

 well as of stone were used, and the skulls of the people were larger 

 and longer than in the previous period ; while the country seems to 

 have been covered with forests of oak (Quercus robur). 3rd. An 

 iron period, which lasted to the historic times, and in which beech 

 forests replaced those of oak. All of these remains are geological- 

 ly recent ; and except the changes in the forests, and of some in- 

 digenous animals in consequence, and probably a slight elevation 

 of some parts of Denmark, no material changes in organic or in- 

 organic nature have occurred. 



The Danish antiquaries have attempted to calculate the age 

 of the oldest of these deposits, by considerations based on the 

 growth of peat, and the succession of trees ; but these calculations 

 are obviously unreliable. The first forest of pines would, when 

 it attained maturity, naturally be destroyed, as usually happens 

 in America, by forest conflagrations. It might perish in this way 

 in a single summer. The second growth which succeeded, would 

 in America be birch, poplar, and similar trees, which would form 

 a new and tall forest in half a century ; and in two or three cen- 

 turies would probably be succeeded by a second permanent forest, 



