358 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
which, if the foregoing facts are truly interpreted, would seem nevertheless to 
have been marked, before its end, by the presence of Man on a land clothed 
with a vegetation apparently very similar to that now flourishing in like 
latitudes, and whose waters were inhabited by Testacea also of forms now 
living ; while on the surface of the land there lived Mammalia, of which some 
species are yet the associates of man, although accompanied by others, many of 
them of gigantic size, and of forms now extinct." 
Mr. Prestwich's paper contains much more valuable matter, and much more 
minute detail, than we can afford space to give. It is more fully illustrated 
with excellent plates, maps, sections, and woodcuts, of more finish and detail 
than the merely characteristic sketches we have made from them. We have 
given enough, however, to bring before our readers the important features of 
his valuable paper. We now pass to that of Mr. Evans, printed in the 
Archseologia. 
" It has been generally supposed that the last of the great geological changes 
took place at a period long antecedent to the appearance of man upon the earth, 
and that the modifications of the earth's surface of which he has been a wit- 
ness have been — with the exception of those due directly to volcanic agency — 
but trifling and immaterial. 
"The subject of the present paper, the discovery of flint implements wrought 
by the hand of man, in what are certainly undisturbed beds of gravel, sand, 
and clay, both on the continent and in this country, tends to show that such 
an opinion is erroneous ; and that in this region of the globe, at least, its sur- 
face has undergone far greater vicissitudes since man's creation than has 
hitherto been imagined. A discovery of this kind must of necessity be of 
great interest both to the geologist, as affording an approximate date for the 
formation of these superficial beds of drift, and as exemplifying the changes 
which the fau7ia of this region has undergone since man appeared among its 
occupants ; and also to the antiquary, as furnishing the earliest relics of the 
human race with which he can hope to become acquainted — relics of tribes of 
apparently so remote a period, that — 
Antiquity appears to have begun 
Long after their primeval race was run. 
But beyond the limited circle of those peculiarly interested in geology or archse- 
ology, this discovery will claim the especial attention of aU who, whether on 
ethnological, philological, or theological grounds, are interested in the great 
question of the antiquity of man upon the earth. 
"The question whether man had or had not coexisted with the extinct pachy- 
dermatous and other mammals, whose bones are so frequently found in the more 
recent geological deposits, had indeed already more than once been brought 
under the notice of scientific inquirers by the discovery of flint flakes and 
implements and fragments of rude pottery, in conjunction with the remains of 
these animals in several ossiferous caverns both in England and on the conti- 
nent. Among the former may be mentioned Kent's Cavern near Torquay, and 
among the latter those of Bize, of Pondres, and Souvignargues, and those on 
the banks of the Meuse, near Liege, explored by Dr. Schmerling, where human 
bones were also found, apparently washed in at the same time as the bones of 
the extinct quadrupeds. In some ossiferous caves in the Brazils similar dis- 
coveries had also been made by Dr. Lund and M. Claussen, and, from the con- 
dition and situation of the human remains. Dr. Lund concluded that they had 
belonged to an ancient tribe that was coeval with some of the extinct 
mammalia. 
" But it was always felt that there was a degree of uncertainty attaching to 
