370 
REVIEWS. 
ANTIQUITY OF MAN.* 
I S the Mosaic chronology to he relied on in forming an estimate of the 
immense period which has elapsed since man made his first appear- 
ance on the globe? Are we to believe that the human race was first 
created six thousand years ago ? Both questions must be answered in the 
negative. The mass of evidence — geological, archaeological, and zoological 
— which supports the conclusion that man has been upon the earth for a 
period of more than a thousand centuries, is almost overwhelming. This 
evidence is the result of the laborious and persevering researches of such 
men as Schinerling, Boucher de Perthes, Falconer, and Lyell, who have 
devoted themselves to the advancement of palaeontological science. The 
last-named savant , who is as remarkable for his great powers of observation 
as for his clear reasoning faculties and his lucid style as a writer, has 
given us, in the work now under notice, a grand survey of what has been 
done in the branch of science on which he treats. There are few subjects 
upon which so many memoirs have lately been written as that of the 
antiquity of man. Man’s age having been in part ascertained by an 
inquiry into his co-existence or non-co-existence with certain fossil mam- 
mals, and the latter being discoverable in the deposits found in caverns, 
the subject of bone-caves is one now attracting considerable attention. 
This portion of Sir Charles Lyell’s work appears to be most exhaustive. 
We observe detailed accounts of the characters presented by the caverns 
of Belgium, France, Sicily, England, and especially of those known as the 
Engis and Neanderthal , famous as having contained the skulls bearing 
their names, and which some time ago produced such a commotion in the 
scientific world. The chapter on the peat-mosses of Denmark is of decided 
interest, inasmuch as it furnishes a species of evidence which, from being 
untrammelled by collateral geologic speculation, can be easily appreciated 
by an ordinary reader. It helps, at the very outset, to show that the age 
of man, as a race, has been under-estimated. Sir Charles having alluded 
to the extent and depth of the Danish peat, observes, “ Around the borders 
of the bogs, and at various depths in them, lie trunks of trees, especially of 
the Scotch fir (Pinus sj/lvestris ), often three feet in diameter, which must 
have grown on the margin of the peat-mosses, and frequently fallen into 
* “The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks 
on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation.” By Sir Charles 
Lyell, F.R.S. Third Edition. 1863. London : Murray. 
