O'Reilly — On the Waste of the Coast of Ireland, 8fc. 101 



In this respect it may be worth, citing the following from an article 

 in the Nineteenth Century, " On the Cradle of the Human Race," by 

 Samuel Wacldington : — 



" Others see reason to believe that there is little or no doubt that 

 the human race has existed on the face of the Earth for more than one 

 million or even two million years. 



" Darwin, it will be remembered, was of opinion that man may have 

 existed in the Eocene Period ; while Mr. Wallace holds {^Nineteenth 

 Century, 1887) that he certainly did exist in that period. Professor 

 Huxley also appears to have held this view, for he observes that the 

 first traces of the primordial stock whence man has proceeded need no 

 longer be sought by those who entertain any form of doctrine of pro- 

 gressive development in the newest Tertiaries, but that they may be 

 looked for in an epoch more distant from the age of the Mephas primi- 

 genius (Mammoth) than this is from us." 



" The remoteness of the date," observes Sir John Evans, "at which 

 the Palaeolithic Period had its beginning almost transcends our power 

 of imagination " ; and Professor Ratzel in his "History of Mankind," 

 states that a regular workshop for the manufacture of chert flakes 

 which was discovered on the banks of the Mississipi in Minnesota, dates 

 from the Interglacial Era, and that hunters chased the long-extinct 

 beasts of the Drift Age in Mexico and in Argentina. 



He (Mr. Waddiugton) asks, "But how long ago is it since the 

 commencement of the Eocene Period ? " and taking into consideration 

 the statements of Lord Kelvin as to the probable time since the 

 solidification of the Earth, he says : " The date of the beginning of the 

 Eocene Period cannot therefore be estimated at less than four million 

 years before the present time. 



" When the great Mastodon, now in the British Museum, was 

 found by Dr. Kock in the Ossage Yalley, Missouri, a number of stone 

 arrowheads and charcoal were found near it, and one of the arrow- 

 heads lay underneath the thigh-bone of the Mastodon, and in contact 

 with it. The animal was found, it will be remembered, at a depth of 

 20 feet under several alternate layers of loam, gravel, clay, and peat, 

 with a forest of old trees on the surface." 



(p. 72.) — Boyd Dawkins sketches out the Geography of Britain 

 (and Ireland) in the Pliocene Age (fig. 10), and says : " The North 

 Sea, which was small in the Miocene age, and did not touch our 

 present coast line, was now gradually enlarged at the expense of the 

 land, and ultimately a direct communication was made with the Arctic 

 Sea, by the sinking of the land, extending from the Scandinavian 



