18 
given, by the succession of mammals, denoted by remains of young 
individuals, or the irregular layers of the earliest gravels and 
silt. From these slight data we know that it must have 
endured for a considerable period. How much of this period 
is covered by the implement time, no record tells us. The cave 
deposits associated with the latter may have been introduced in 
a very few years. There is no scientific requirement for very 
many centuries. Of what was taking place in other parts of the 
earth at the same time, amongst other assemblages of creatures, 
we have no information. We can only surmise, and hope this 
gap will be filled up by future researches in the East. 
Next comes the period of disturbance and augmented action. 
This, from the nature of the causes at work, is also without 
positive chronology. Numerous oscillations of land over a large 
area might, and probably did, take many ages to produce the 
results which ended in equilibrium and settlement. But it seems 
evident that geology has nothing to say against the assumption 
that 2,000 years might have sufficed for this part of the palaeoli- 
thic epoch, including the revolution effected by change of level 
at or near its close. We find that North America shows the 
same prevalence, first of rough implements exclusively, then of 
polished ones. But without the break between which exists in 
our parts obviously from catastrophe. Yet how different are 
the fancies inaugurated by the uniformitarian master and his 
disciples, from the sober deductions which an unprejudiced 
person may make from the same premises. Sir C. Lyell says : 
“ Since the advent of man on the earth, we have therefore to 
deal with periods of incalculable length. Figures cannot 
enable us to appreciate these enormous lapses of time.”* “ In 
the old glacial drifts of Scotland the relics of man are found 
along with those of the fossil elephant. ”f “The date of the 
origin of some of these beds (the peat beds) cannot be esti- 
mated at less than 40,000 or 50,000 years.”;}; “ The change 
from the chipped to the polished stone period is very gradual. 
It embraces thousands of centuries .”§ “ So far as investi- 
gations have gone, they indisputably refer the existence of 
man to a date remote from us by many hundreds of thousands 
of years.” || 
Now, it will not surprise you to learn that not one of these 
dogmas is founded on geology; nor do we arrive, in our 
imaginary flight backwards, at any different race of men; for 
Sir Charles affirms that the human skeleton in the Belgian 
u 
* Antiquity of Mon, p. 196. 
§ lb., p. 197. 
f J6.,p. 19. t 16., p. 197. 
|f lb., p. 193. 
