194 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



quently acknowledged as an artificial deformity. The Guanches, 

 whose skulls resemble those of the ancient Egyptians, belong 

 probably to the so-called Caucasian race ; they were a semi- 

 civilized people, in which the nobility were distinguished 

 from the people ; even monotheism, and some astronomical 

 knowledge, are ascribed to them by old Spanish authors. 1 As 

 to the rest of the peoples mentioned, exact information is 

 wanting, with exception of the Papuas, and there exists not 

 the slightest ground for considering these older than the rest 

 of mankind. 



The assertions maintained at different periods, and lately in 

 America, that human bones have been found in tertiary forma- 

 tions, accompanied by fossil remains, which justified the in- 

 ference of the existence of man at a period when the surface 

 of the earth had not yet assumed its present contour ; they were, 

 until recently, without confirmation, and are still by geologists 

 received with considerable caution. A. Maury, 2 however, and 

 also Nott and Gliddon, 3 endeavour to prove that the finding of 

 fossil human bones and implements is unquestionable; in oppo- 

 sition to which the author of the Essay in the " Deutsche 

 Vierteljahrschrifb" 4 only assumes its probability. 5 With regard 

 to the Guadaloupe skeletons, it may be stated that, in conse- 

 quence of purely local conditions, the process of petrifaction 

 proceeds in that island very rapidly, and therefore these 

 skeletons cannot be adduced as a proof of a remote exist- 

 ence of the human race ; nor is the circumstance, that bones 

 of the mammoth are found intermixed with arrowheads, in 

 favour of this theory. Littre 6 merely states that the exist- 

 ence of man in an earlier geological epoch has become less 

 improbable than before by the excavations of Boucher de 



1 Humboldt und Bonpland, " E. in die -^Equinoctial-Gegenden," i, pp 153 

 283; Golbeny, "E. durch d. Westl. Afr.," i, p. 35, 1803 ; Webb et Berthelot, 

 " Hist. nat. des lies Canaries ; Berthelot, in " Mem. de la soc. Ethnol.," i, 

 et ii ; Hodgkin, in " Nbuv. ann. des voy.," iii, p. 375. 



2 "Des ossemens humains enfouis dans les roches," 1852 : Sprint, in "1'In- 

 stitut," ii, p. 41, 1854. 



3 " Indigenous races of the earth," 1857. 



4 Chap, ii, p. 213, 1838. 



5 Compare Cuvier " Umwalzungen der Erdrinde," German by v Nogger- 

 rath, i, p. 118, 1830. 



6 " E6v. des deux mondes." 



