1865,J PALCONER — NILE AND GANGES. 383 



many years, I have been guided by tbe indications of the mam- 

 malian fauna, as intermediate between the Miocene of the Irawaddi, 

 Perim Island, and the Sewalik Hills, and that of the existing period. 

 4. General Inferences. — I shall now briefly indicate the inferences 

 to which the observations on the section of the Jumna lead. 



1. That the Doab alluvium, intersected by the Ganges and Jumma, 

 consists of fluviatHe sedimentary deposits, the inferior portion of 

 high antiquity. 



2. That there are no indications of its being anywhere overlain 

 by deposits resulting from marine submergence. 



3. That during the progress of alluvial deposition the area now 

 constituting the plains of Hindostan was probably subject to move- 

 ments of upheaval and depression, analogous to, or corresponding 

 with, those which have been demonstrated to have occurred in the 

 delta of the Ganges. 



4. That the fossil remains occurring in the undisturbed banks of 

 clay and kankar, at the bottom of the section, are of the same age 

 as the deposits in which they occur. 



5. That the ancient fossil Mammalia of the Gangetic valley be- 

 long to the Pliocene fauna of the Nerbudda, as distinguished from 

 the Miocene fauna of the Sewalik Hills. 



6. That of the Jumna fossil Crocodiles, some belong to species 

 which are now Hving ; and that of the extinct Mammalia, some 

 were probably cotemporaries of Man. 



7. That no trustworthy cases of the occurrence of very ancient 

 human bones, or industrial objects, have yet been established from 

 the sections of the Jumna and Ganges, but that they may be looked 

 for on a more careful and extended search. 



8. That in the great abundance of calcareous concretionary de- 

 posits there is an analogy between the alluvial beds of the valleys 

 of the Ganges and Nile ; but that in the poverty of vertebrate re- 

 mains, the latter, in so far as it has been explored, is a remarkable 

 contrast to the former. 



§ III. Antiquity oe Man in India. 



1. Introduction. — In discussing some of the speculative points which 

 have been raised in this paper, I have introduced topics which are 

 not usually brought before the Society. But I make no apology. 

 Geology has never disdained to draw upon any department of human 

 knowledge that could throw light on the subjects which it investi- 

 gates. Cuvier, in the " Discours Preliminaires," exhausted the re- 

 cords and traditions of every ancient people in search of arguments 

 to support the ojiinion that the advent of man upon the earth 

 dates from a comparatively late epoch. At the present time the 

 whole aspect of the subject is transformed. The science is now in- 

 timately connected with archaeological ethnology, in searching for 

 evidence of the hand of man in the oldest Quaternary tluviatile 

 gravels of Europe. In other continents, under different physical 

 conditions, it may be possible to interweave the indications of 

 language and misty tradition with the more certain results of pa- 



2d2 



