24 
toner's address. 
the rivers and valleys, the finer particles of earthy- 
matters forming our alluvial deposits and agricultural 
soils. The heavier portions we recognize as the 
bowlder formations and the gravel-beds. At this time, 
too, the rivers assumed their present direction and 
commenced carving out their beds. The changes 
which have gone on since the Quaternary period are 
frequently referred to as those of the "present period," 
and the strata formed during its continuance are called 
" recent deposits." This brief synopsis of geological 
facts is deemed essential to a ready understanding of 
the teachings and theories adopted in reference to 
human palaeontology. They are also important land- 
marks in prehistoric archaeology. 
William Evans, President of the Geological Society 
of London, stated in February, 1875, that till within 
the last three years it was generally believed that the 
earliest known traces of man were posterior to the 
Glacial period."^ But the portion of a fibula having 
been found in the Victoria cave, near Settle, England, 
in a deposit which was embedded in stiff Glacial clay 
and scratched pebbles overlain by ice, it may now be 
looked upon as conclusively established that man lived 
before the last Glacial period.f Professor James Geikie 
concludes, from general reasoning, that the palaeolithic 
deposits are of a Pre-Glacial and Inter-Glacial age, and 
do not in any part belong to the Post-Glacial times, 
and, farther, that it may be said for certain that no 
palaeolithic bed can be shown to belong to a more re- 
cent date than the mild era which preceded the last 
great submergence. J 
"^American Journal of Science ^ vol. lo. 
•\ American yournal of Science, \o\. lo. 
J The Abbe Bourgeois, in his investigations on archaeology, carries 
