17 
a few centuries later he uses iron and other metals. Stone 
tails into desuetude, and is banished to the remoter islands, or 
used only as a makeshift. ' 
. r F he Hon-uniformitarian nature of the oscillations referred to 
is shown in all the “raised beaches” round our coasts. The 
old sea-bed at an elevation of from 40 to 60 feet above its 
former level is covered with a mass of angular shingle, re- 
. sultin g local fresh-water floods or rains poured out sub- 
sequently to their rise and settlement, in a degree not now 
experienced m the same localities 
Mr. Boyd Dawkins says ‘ “ The general surface of the 
val eys has undergone but little change since history be-an 
and the excavation of rivers has been so small as ‘to have 
escaped accurate measurement.”* 
(5.) We are now in a position to discuss the bearing of these 
geological discoveries on absolute clironologv. We have before 
said that even in the present advanced state of our knowledge 
all schemes of chronology are at best mere suggestions having 
more or less probability.-}- 
In the midst of the quaternary period, on the boulder drift, 
we stand on the upraised sea-bottom of the icy ocean, and in 
the banks around us we may still discern in some places shingle 
and rubble once pushed along the bottom of the sea by an ice- 
berg, or thrown down by the melting of an ice-raft. In some 
plaees we may perceive the denuded land left bare by the 
metting of the ice-cap. Coming down through the ages ‘from 
this tar-off time, we next discern a surface spotted with forests, 
intersected by vast rivers, occupied by large mammals pursued 
by men. Here first we encounter the being described by 
ochiller: — J 
“ Darkly hid in cave and cleft, 
Shy, the Troglodyte abode ; 
Earth, a waste, was found and left 
Where the wandering Nomad strode ; 
Deadly, with the spear and shaft, 
Prowl’d the hunter through the land.” 
It is, however, just as reasonable to conclude that these were 
the characteristics of the human race elsewhere at that time. 
as it would be for the celebrated Zulu savage to construct a 
theory of mankind founded on the empty powder-cans and pit- 
a s m the wake of Gordon Cumming. We have no indication 
whatever of the character or duration of this occupancy, save that 
* Boyd Dawkins, p. 271. 
f The observation of Cicero, in the Academic Questions, applies -—“These 
oShS such if th nge ’ tUt tHe ma ?/ T h0 has made them could not take his 
oath that such is the case ; nor could I take mine that it is not the case.” 
VOL. X. c 
