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REMARKS BY HIS GRACE THE DUKE OE ARGYLL, K.G. 
I concur entirely in the general argument of Professor Hughes on the 
antiquity of man. 
I would observe, however, that it assumes, as most geologists do generally 
assume, that the gravels which have been found to hold human implements 
are exclusively river-gravels. 
I entertain great doubt on this point. The distribution of our superficial 
gravels seems to me to indicate that some of them do not belong to any 
river system, but that they have been spread over hill and valley by marine 
action. If human implements have been found in gravels of marine origin, an 
entirely new element is introduced into the question. 
My own belief is, that a submergence under the sea to the extent of upwards 
of 2,000 feet has been one of the very latest of geological changes. During 
part of this submergence, glacial condition prevailed over a large part of what 
is now Europe. 
My further impression is, that man appeared on the scene when the land 
was emerging, and that the elevation was comparatively rapid. During this 
period it is most probable that heavy rains prevailed, and if so, the double 
action of elevation and of continual floods would greatly shorten the time 
required for the cutting out of the beds of streams or the deepening of valleys. 
The Palaeolithic weapons indicate a people somewhat in the condition of the 
Eskimo, and they may have been the outliers of races in a very different con- 
dition, who lived in non-glacial climates to the South. 
I wish the attention of geologists were more directed to the questions con- 
nected with the admitted fact of sea-gravels at a high elevation on our Welsh 
and Scottish mountains. 
REMARKS BY PROFESSOR T. R. BIRKS, M.A. (CAMB.). 
Professor Hughes’s paper seems to me fully to confirm two principles 
which I hold : 1st. That there is no genuine scientific evidence for a pre- 
quaternary existence of man, i.e., for carrying him further back geologically 
than the close of the Glacial Drift period. 2nd. That the only definite 
scientific ground alleged for assigning an immense antiquity to that Drift 
period is the hypothesis of Mr. Croll, which would fix it definitely to a 
distance of cither 200,000, or S00,000 years. 
