HIS GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS. 133 



the vicissitudes of the weather — and there where the 

 lower animals which approach him nearest now exist, 

 and where fossil remains turn up in greatest variety 

 and abundance. The earliest date to which man has 

 yet been traced back in Europe is probably but as 

 yesterday in comparison with the epoch at which he 

 made his appearance in more favoured regions." 



Before, therefore, we can indicate the term of 

 man's existence on this globe, geology must carry 

 her researches to other regions — must trace his rude 

 beginnings in Asia and Africa, and discover, if pos- 

 sible, the nature of the contemporaneous fauna. As 

 yet little or nothing has been done in this direction, 

 but the occurrence of implements of quartzite in 

 Southern India, " similar to the flint-tools of Western 

 Europe, demonstrate the same simple beginnings, and 

 imply a long upward ascent from workers in stone to 

 workers in metals, and this, be it observed, at a 

 period ages before man had found his way westward 

 to the caves and river-valleys of France and Belgium. 

 If, then, history and architectural monuments in 

 Egypt, Assyria, and Chaldsea, carry us back some- 

 thing like four or five thousand years, what shall be 

 said of the time that must have elapsed between the 



* Discovered in 1865, in the lateritic formation of Madras, ty 

 Messrs. Foote and King of the Indian Geological Survey, — See 

 QiMrterly Jowmal of Geology. 



