30 Mr. R. Bruce Foote on the occurrence of 



above the existing sea level — by adopting Sir Charles 

 LyelTs standard rate of oscillation of 2£ feet per century(l) 

 we should obtain a period of about 14,700 years — assuming 

 the rate of elevation to have been constant throughout the 

 whole period. 



The first appearance of the human race in Southern India 

 would then have to be referred back to a period yet more 

 remote, but the standard rate of movement adopted is one 

 confessedly arbitrary, and it cannot be doubted but that a 

 far higher rate of elevation than 0 3 of an inch per annum 

 might have prevailed over an area as large as the Indian 

 Peninsula without inducing catastrophes and cataclysms on 

 the scale required by the cosmogonists of last century, — 

 without, indeed, inducing any paroxysmal phenomena what- 

 soever. If we may conclude from the striking resemblance 

 of the objects of their respective manufacture, that the 

 people who made the quartzite Implements of Southern 

 India were contemporaries of those who manufactured flint 

 Implements in Northern France and other parts of Europe 

 it is not unreasonable to argue that the climatic conditions 

 existing in India may have been analogous to those which 

 prevailed in North-western Europe at that ancient time. 

 It has been shown by Mr. Prestwich and other Geologists 

 who have treated the subject, that the climatic conditions 

 in North-western Europe at that period were those of great 

 cold accompanied by copious deposition of atmospheric 

 moisture, this would indicate by analogy the prevalence 

 of an extremely wet climate in the tropics. The prevalence 

 of such an extreme climate during the period of emergence 

 of the lateritic deposits, would go far to account for the 

 immense denudation they exhibit, having been effected in a 



(1) Note. — The rate of 2^ feet per century assumed by Sir Charles 

 Lyell as his standard of oscillation, is the Ascertained rate of elevation 

 of the land now in progress in part of the Scandinavian Peninsula. 



