GEOLOGICAL EELATIONS. 



Eelative Chronology of Geology — Nature of Geological Evidence 

 — Ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron — High Antiquity of Man 

 in Western Europe, as evidenced by Remains of Human 

 Art — Higher Inferential Antiquity in Asia and the East — 

 Our SKcth Proposition. 



Seeing then, that so little certainty respecting the 

 antiquity of man is to be obtained from historical 

 sources, we shall now inquire what light geological 

 investigation has recently thrown on the subject, and 

 especially on the relative chronology of those races 

 that preceded all history. It is obvious that in every 

 country we pass backwards, from the operations of 

 to-day to those of our ancestors, and from these, so 

 far as they are recorded, to those of which we have no 

 written account, and which are evidenced by architec- 

 tural ruins, sepulchral monuments, and other remains 

 of art. Even from these we can carry the inquiry 

 into more primitive ages, when man, ignorant of 

 the metals, fashioned stone implements, sheltered in 

 caverns, subsisted alone by hunting and fishing, and 



