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" deposit. The facts, however, recently brought to light 
" during the systematic investigation, as reported on by 
" Dr. Falconer, of the Brixham cave, must, I think, have 
" prepared you to admit that scepticism in regard to the 
" cave- evidence in favour of the antiquity of man, had 
" previously been pushed to an extreme. To escape from 
" what I now consider was a legitimate deduction from the 
" facts already accumulated, we were obliged to resort to 
" hypotheses requiring great changes in the relative levels 
" and drainage of valleys, and, in short, the whole physical 
" geography of the respective regions where the caves are 
" situated, — changes that would alone imply a remote 
" antiquity for the human fossil remains, and make it 
" probable that man was old enough to have co-existed at 
" least with the Siberian mammoth ; but in the course of the 
" last fifteen years another class of proofs has been advanced 
" in France in confirmation of man's antiquity, into two of 
" which I have personally examined in the course of the 
" present summer ; and I am fully prepared to corroborate 
" the conclusions which have been recently laid before the 
" Royal Society by Mr. Prestwich." 
After the testimony, therefore, of such a man as Sir Charles 
Lyell, whose profound researches as a geologist, and extensive 
knowledge of all the collateral branches of science are of 
European recognition, surely this highly important subject 
ought to be finally settled ; more especially as his conviction 
is the result of a careful and minute investigation on the 
spot, by one who formerly held a different opinion. To 
those who yet remain sceptical, I would observe that the 
subject appears to be reduced to very narrow limits, inasmuch 
as when we find the remains of man, his works, and extinct 
animals in a deposit of clay or gravel, which afford the most 
indubitable evidence of never having been disturbed since its 
deposition, we ought at once to admit equality of age, and, 
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