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share in the discussion, and comhated the view by an appeal to the contra- 

 dictory evidence furnished by the Himalayahs, the lakes of Lombardy, and 

 the Dead Sea. 



For nearly thirty years Dr. Falconer had been engaged more or less vpith 

 the investigation of a subject which has lately occupied much of the atten- 

 tion both of men of science and of the educated classes generally, viz. the 

 proofs of the remote antiquity of the human race. In 1833, fossil bones 

 procured from a great depth in the ancient alluvium of the valley of the 

 Gauges in Hindostan were erroneously figured and published as human. 

 The subject attracted much attention at the time in India. It was in 1835, 

 while the interest was still fresh, that Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley 

 discovered the remains of the gigantic miocene fossil tortoise of India, which 

 by its colossal size realized the mythological conception of the tortoise 

 which sustained the elephant and the world together on its back (Geol. 

 Trans. 2nd ser. vol. v. 1837, p. 499). In the same formations as the 

 Colossochelys the remains were discovered of a smaller tortoise, identical 

 with the existing Emys tectum. About the same time also several species 

 of fossil Quadrumana were discovered in the Sewalik Hills, one of which 

 was thought to have exceeded the Ourang-outang, while another was hardly 

 distinguishable from the living "Hoonuman" monkey of the Hindoos. 

 Coupling these facts with the occurrence of the camel, giraffe, horse, croco- 

 diles, &c. in the Sewalik fauna, and with the further important fact that 

 the plains of the valley of the Ganges had undergone no late submergence, 

 and passed through no stage of glacial refrigeration, to interrupt the pre- 

 vious tranquil order of physical conditions. Dr. Falconer was so impressed 

 with the conviction that the human race might have been early inhabitants 

 of India, that he was constantly on the look out for the upturning of the 

 relics of man, or of his works, from the miocene strata of the Sewalik Hills. 

 In April 1844 he wrote thus to his friend Captain Cautley Joining the 

 indication given by the Hindoo mythology with the determined fact of the 

 little Emys tectum having survived from the fossil period down to the pre- 

 sent day, I have put forward the opinion that the large tortoise may have 

 survived also, and only become extinct within the human period. This is 

 a most important matter in reference to the history of manT The same 

 view was publicly announced at the Zoological Society and the British 

 Association in 1844. 



Ten years later Dr. Falconer resumed the subject in India, while investi- 

 gating the fossil remains of the Jumna. In May 1858, having the same 

 inquiry in view, he communicated a letter to the Council of the Geological 

 Society, which suggested and led to the exploration of the Brixham cave, 

 and the discovery in it of flint-implements of great antiquity associated with 

 the bones of extinct animals. In conjunction with Professor Ramsay and 

 Mr. Pengelly he drew up a report on the subject; which, communicated in 

 the same year to the Councils of the Royal and Geological Societies, excited 

 the interest of men of science in the case. Following up the same object, 



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