RECENT ADVANCES IN GEOLOGY. 459 
by a miner named James Matson in a shaft one hundred and 
fifty feet deep, which passed through five beds of lava and 
four deposits of auriferous gravel. The statements of Pro- 
fessor Whitney as to the authenticity of this skull have been 
received with extreme distrust; but does not this earlier 
discovery of human remains in the same formation confirm 
the correctness of those statements? 
Our country is yet new, and it is only recently that atten- 
tion has been directed to these investigations. It is hardly 
to be expected that a competent observer will be present at 
the precise time when any relic of the past is disinterred ; 
and there is an universal feeling of doubt and distrust as to 
the authenticity of all such finds. With the evidence before 
us that both hemispheres have been subjected to the same 
dynamie causes, and peopled by the same races of animals, 
often identical in species, is it not philosophical to infer that 
here we shall be able to detect the traces of man and his 
works, reaching back to as high an antiquity as on the Euro- 
pean continent? 
The Reindeer Epoch terminates the earliest known record 
in the career of man. It was signalized by a series of phy- 
sical events too important to be slightly passed over. The 
glaciers again advanced, and again the land became refriger- 
ated; but the cold period was not so long continued, and 
was less intense. To this succeeded a period of warmth, 
and as the glaciers dissolved under its influence, there en- 
sued a flood which swept over the lowlands and forced the 
cave-dwellers to flee to the high grounds. The water in 
Belgium, according to Dupont, rose to the height of four - 
hundred and fifty feet, and the calcareous mud, known as the 
Loess, was then deposited in the Rhine Valley. The caves 
were also invaded, and the “bone-earth” which forms the 
division between two distinct faune, is of the same age. 
It was during this epoch that the great mammals disap- 
peared from the earth; the elephant, the rhinoceros, the 
cave-bear, the cave-hyena, the tiger, and the Irish stag. 
