456 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
in winch it was found.” Here, of course, Mr. Busk refers to 
the prevalent geological opinion that the gravels of Moulin- 
Quignon belong to the “ high level ” gravels of Mr. Prestwick, 
which are regarded as the oldest beds on the banks of the 
river Somme. 
In the above condensation we have referred almost ex- 
clusively to what are at present the presumed oldest remains 
of man and his handiwork. Our limits forbid the introduction, 
at least in this article, of explanations of less remote evidences 
of human antiquity ; and if we have proved the greater, we have 
inclusively proved the less. To those who desire a definite 
computation of something approaching to the number of 
centuries to which the remains cited point, we can only say 
that no such definite computation can be made, and geologists 
seem averse to commit themselves to any conjecture of actual 
time on this point. When Sir Charles Lyell states that if the 
Natchez man’s remains are genuinely antique, they indicate an 
antiquity of at least one hundred thousand years for the 
first population of the valley of the Mississippi, he leaves 
the range of estimate for other relics open to any latitude or 
longitude which other geologists may choose to calculate. Yet 
it is manifest that, if the opinions of those who demand for 
man the longest antiquity be well founded, more than one 
hundred, or perhaps two hundred thousand years will be 
requisite, according to the Lyellian method of estimating geo- 
logical time. 
The public at large, and especially certain classes of persons 
to whom geological science is new and strange, naturally 
shrink from such conclusions. The question, however, must 
inevitably be tried upon its own appropriate evidences, and if 
these are adequate to conviction then preconceived chronology 
must give way. On the one hand we may not regard the 
comparatively immense antiquity of man as absolutely demon- 
strated ; but on the other hand we must not ridicule and 
cast aspersions upon the opinions of men of high geological 
eminence, whose interest in the matter is not personal but 
simply scientific, and who have for some years devoted their 
best powers to the elucidation ' of the topic. With these 
gentlemen we are disposed to think that time will add con- 
siderably to the evidences for human antiquity, and we should 
not be at all surprised if within a few years it becomes 
generally admitted as a geological canon. 
At the same time there are geologists who are not yet pre- 
pared to side with the antique party. Pre-eminent amongst 
these is that very practical French geologist M. Elie de Beau- 
mont, who during the discussion on the Abbeville jaw, delivered 
his opinion that the gravel deposit of Moulin- Quignon does 
