LYELL ON THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, 
217 
reference to the calculations made by the Swiss Archaeologists, it 
“ deserves notice and appears to us to be full of promise.” At any 
rate, as Bacon has well said, “ Citius venit veritas ex errore quam ex 
confusione.” 
On this hypothesis, the submergence of Wales to the extent of 
1,400 feet, would, at this rate, require 56,000 years, “ but taking 
“ Prof. Ramsay’s estimate of 800 feet more, that elevation being 
“ required for the deposition of some of the stratified drift, we must 
“ demand an additional period of 32,000 years, amounting in all to 
“ 88,000 ; and the same time would be required for the re-elevation 
“ of the tract to its present height. But if the land rose in the second 
“ continental period no more than 600 feet above the present level, 
“ this .... w T ould have taken another 26,000 years ; the whole of 
“ the grand oscillation, comprising the submergence and re-emergence, 
“ having taken, in round numbers, 180,000 years for its completion; 
“ and this, even if there were no pause or stationary period, when 
“ the downward movement ceased, and before it was converted into 
“ an upward one. 5 ’ Here some misprint has probably crept in ; 600 
feet, at the rate assumed by Sir Charles, would give 24,000, and not 
26,000 years, and allowing for the final return to our present level, 
the sum of the periods, viz. 88,000+88,000+24,000+24,000, would 
give, not 180,000 but 224,000 years. But as we are endeavouring to 
arrive at Sir Charles Lyell’s own opinion, we must take his estimate. 
This period of 188,000 years, enormous as it is, comprehends, however, 
the post pliocene age only, and says Sir Charles we “ may anticipate 
the finding of his remains on some future day in the Pliocene period 
and thus, leaving this latter as an unknown quantity, the antiquity 
of man is 188,000 years+#, the unknown element being in all pro¬ 
bability the greater of the two. 
Here however at length he stops. “ We cannot/’ he says, tf ex- 
“ pect to meet with human bones in the Miocene formations, where 
“ all the species and nearly all the genera of mammalia belong to 
“ types widely differing from those now living.” 
But if Man constitutes a separate family of the Primates—and, 
still more so, if he represents a special order—then, according to all 
analogy, there must have been some representatives of the family in 
Miocene times. Sir Charles, indeed, says that had any “ other 
“ rational being, representing man, then flourished, some signs of his 
“ existence could hardly have escaped unnoticed, in the shape of 
“ implements of stone or metal, more frequent and more durable 
“ than the osseous remains of any of the mammalia.” 
How far our ancestors in Miocene times were rational beings we 
are not prepared to say; but we are astonished to find Sir Charles 
Lyell relying on negative evidence in Palaeontology. Ho G-eologist 
has hitherto more ably maintained the Imperfection of the Geological 
Record, and even out of the present volume we might quote Sir 
Charles against himself. We will content ourselves with holding up 
the Amiens hatchets as a warning, and will only observe that, what- 
