317 
long, according to observed modes and rates of change, it 
would take to develope the manifold speech of to-day. 
Physicists are called upon to tell us for how long the great 
lamp of heaven if not replenished can have burned ; for if its 
age must be reduced, and yet include all the asons of geologic 
time, how very short the part through which man lived. 
Biologists are asked if they can say what is man’s place in 
nature among the groups of living things that people earth, 
and, on the hypothesis of evolution, how long it is since he 
has become that which we call man. 
None of these questions are for me to-night. Though I 
must mention a theory of works of art of ancient date referred 
by some to ff man’s precursors,” I shall dismiss that case on 
other grounds. 
I take the question to refer to man, — man as we know 
him — of whom we all agree to speak as man. 
I will suppose that I am asked first this : In what formations 
have we found conclusive evidence that man was there ? and, 
secondly, having satisfied ourselves as to the relative position 
of the beds in which his works are found, can we assign any 
exact numerical estimate of years since those beds were laid 
down ? and if we give that up, whether we can trace him back 
to a remote antiquity, and from what evidence we derive the 
impression or conviction that that was far removed from earliest 
history ? 
This part of the question is entirely geological. We may 
consider that we have proved the relative position of the beds 
with which we have to deal. But to refer to them by name 
without more explanation, I will first give a sketch of these 
from older up to newer as they come. 
After the period when the present forms of life appeared 
upon the earth in numbers marked and well-defined — a period 
named from this the “ dawn of recent days,” the Eocene , there 
came a time when over Europe and beyond, the crumplings 
of the crust of earth left basins here and there not quite co- 
incident with those that were before, and by this change drove 
out some forms of life, and let others in; which ‘may have 
existed elsewhere before that time. Still few were there like 
those now seen in recent times, and hence they call the period 
by the name Oligocene. 
When later on, by waste of shore and continent, hollows 
were silted up, and with that too the land was raised ; less 
sea, more land, with lakes and streams, prevailed. Eng- 
land then stood above the waves, and here and there small 
peaty patches tell of swamps with reedy margin, where 
the leaves of plants blown in accumulated deep in mud. 
z 2 
