U r 



'f >*T 



f»- 



**i. 



■ •»» 



I 



Of 





y^ 



i ■-• 



^ 



fo 



It 



It 



H 



i 



^:ri 



^^ 



no 



public 



■•%ivil: 



I Of 



^} hi 



•■u Uit pt\' 







f 



monar' 



K--:? Let 



IK 



•nd 



? ffl 



iB to 



:iiinej 



Lt: in tie 

 vf ^ranifej or 



as we kLvW 



irithout anj 



ipi^ 





^ ♦^^.^Ti be dug 

 ghow them- 



» 





k 



' . that if 

 ;! ,1. m^".^ 



' ;p and ti^ 



orin^' 



a 



fl 



■ 



fo>1.t 



ifM 



(-'i 



L 



1 



I 



'3?- 



i 



Ch. XLVIL] 



HIS WOEKS IN SUBAQUEOUS STRATA 



557 



efface every monument of our existence ; for many works of art 



migM enter agam and agam mto the formations of succes- 

 sive eraSj and escape obliteration even though the very rocks 

 in which they had been for ages imbedded were destroyed, 

 just as pebbles included in the conglomerates of one epoch 

 often contain the organised remains of beings which flourished 

 during a prior era. 



Yet it is no less true, as a late distinguished philosopher 

 has declared, ' that none of the works of a mortal being can 

 be eternal/ They are in the first place wrested from the 

 hands of man, and lost as far as regards their subserviency 

 to his use, by the instrumentality of those very causes which 

 place them in situations where they are enabled to endure for 

 indefinite periods. And even when they have been included 

 in rocky strata, when they have been made to enter as it 

 were into the solid framework of the globe itself, they 

 must nevertheless eventually perish ; for every year some 

 portion of the earth's crust is shattered by earthquakes, or 



melted 



ground to 



movm 



waters on the surface. ' The river of Lethe,' as Bacon 

 eloquently remarks, ^ runneth as well above ground as 

 below.' "^ 



The reader will 



Monuments of pre-historic man 

 see from what was said in the forty- third chapter, that although 

 we might expect man to become cosmopolitan as soon as he 

 had acquired such intellectual superiority as belongs even 

 to the lowest of the human races now inhabiting the globe, 

 yet so long as he was slightly inferior to these races, he may 

 have continued for an indefinite time restricted to one limited 

 area, like the living species of anthropomorphous mammalia. 

 Even if he existed as a rational being before the close of the 

 Pliocene Period, we have no right to assume in the present 

 state of science that we should have obtained geological evi- 

 dence of his existence. 



climate in the first volume, I gave some account (p. 177) of 

 the results of the joint investigations of the geologist and 



When treating of the changes of 



m regard to the remains of nre-historic man 



^ Essay on the Vicissitude of Things. 



