Auckland Institute. 549 



Geologists have foi'med an opinion that the two latest grand changes in the world's 

 condition have been caused by the action of ice, and have named these as the " glacial " 

 ages, separated by an " inter-glacial" period of undefinable length: the alpine glaciers 

 are remains of the later ice age ; it must have been in some such time that the south of 

 France could have been inhabited by the multitudes of reindeer and mammoths, of Avhich 

 remains have been found : we know that these were dwellers in extremely cold countries, 

 and that the latter has been long extinct, the most recent vestiges of it having been dis- 

 covered enveloped in snow. But coeval with these animals in the south of France there 

 was man : for some time their bones, which had been split longitudinally, were the chief 

 evidence that man had operated upon these, one of the distinguishing characteristics of 

 man being, that whereas many animals use material, man alone uses implements ; and 

 these broken bones were in juxta-position with the stone tools used for their fracture ; 

 but now this surmise has received confirmation by the discovery of an etching of the 

 representation of reindeer fighting, drawn upon a piece of that animal's horn, and of an 

 excellent resemblance of a mammoth, at Dordogne, scratched upon a piece of mammoth 

 ivory : these were, human handiwork, and made by men who must have seen what they 

 drew ; for how else could they have derived their knowledge of the appearance of these 

 animals ? ' 



I am inclined to look upon these two specimens of human workmanship as the 

 earliest assignable traces of the existence of man ; some stone implements may be 

 earlier, but cannot be shown so to be — first, from their dating back to the glacial period; 

 secondly, because in the earliest works of the nations whose remains have come down to 

 us, man is often pictured in conjunction with animals, but whether with lions, dogs, 

 horses, bulls, or any other, invariably with animals still existent, and whose existence 

 was compatible with the present climatic conditions. 



On the banks of the Arno, near Florence, are vast accumulations of fossil bones, not, 

 indeed, of mammoth and reindeer, but of elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and bear ; 

 were these animals driven before the advancing waters of the deluge to some supposed 

 refuge, and there overwhelmed? Was the deluge the cause of the second glacial period? 

 If the fountains of the great deep were broken up, why should not ciroumpolar ice have 

 been thereby drifted over submerged Europe till arrested by the Alps ? the vast mass 

 would be ages in thawing, and the cold thus developed would permit the mammoth, 

 reindeer and man to associate ; ice-carried boulders dropped in many parts of Europe 

 show the course taken by the invading arctic mass.. 



In assuming that the second glacial period was thus caused by the flood, the latest 

 possible date has been attributed to it ; on any other suggestion it would have been 

 anterior, and then these two engravings must have been the workmanship of antediluvian 

 man. The scientific investigation of the early history of man is yet in its infancy, but 

 must be conducted on the principles now laid down for historians ; these are expected to 

 examine for themselves original documents, to inspect with their own eyes the lands to 

 which theii' narratives relate and to view their antiquities, — not to recompile second- 

 hand materials, without ascertaining their validity : we believe the writer who has told us 

 that Bagdad existed in the time of Nebuchadnezar, when we learn that bricks, impressed 

 with the name of this monarch, are extracted from foundations of that city. 



We may envy these authors their advantages, but here we cannot avail ourselves of 

 their privileges. But let us do what we can to diminish the gap between us. 



We need not hope to adorn our building with veritable marbles or bronzes from 

 Greece and Italy, or winged bulls from the banks of the Tigris or Euplu'ates, yet repro- 



