IDEAL RESTORATION OF THE NEANDERTHAL MAN.

A MANUAL

OF THE

ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

BY
J. P. MACLEAN.

"In order to know what Man is, we ought to know what Man has been."
—Prof. Max Müller.

REVISED EDITION.

BOSTON:
Universalist Publishing House,
37 Cornhill,
1877.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by
J. P. MACLEAN,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

In lecturing upon the Antiquity of Man I have found the minds of the people prepared to receive the evidences, and ready to believe the conclusions of the geologists. I have felt the need of a popular work to place in the hands of the public, that would be both instructive and welcome. The works of Lyell and Lubbock are too elaborate and too expensive to meet the popular need. My object has been to give an outline of the subject sufficient to afford a reasonable acquaintance with the facts connected with the new science, to such as desire the information but cannot pursue it further, and to serve as a manual for those who intend to become more proficient.

As the Unity of Language and the Unity of the Race are so closely connected with the subject, I have added the two chapters on these questions, hoping they will be acceptable to the reader. It was my intention to have written a more extended chapter on the relation of the Holy Scriptures to this subject, but was forced to condense, as I had done in other chapters, in order not to transcend the proposed limits of the book.

In the preparation of this work I have freely used Lyell's "Antiquity of Man" and "Principles of Geology," Lubbock's "Pre-Historic Times," Buchner's "Man in the Past, Present, and Future," Figuier's "Primitive Man," Wilson's "Pre-Historic Man," Keller's "Lake-Dwellings," the works of Charles Darwin, Dana's "Manual of Geology," Huxley's "Man's Place in Nature," Prichard's "Natural History of Man," Pouchet's "Plurality of the Human Race," and others, referred to in the margins.

I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Frank Cushing, for the ideal restoration of the Neanderthal Man. The engraving was made especially for this work. The references to Buchner are from his work entitled, "Man in the Past, Present and Future."

CONTENTS.

PAGE

[CHAPTER I.]
INTRODUCTION.

Interest in the subject—Influence of Lyell—Usher's Chronology—Aimé Boué first to proclaim the high antiquity of man—Dr. Schmerling the founder—Boucher de Perthes the apostle—Classifications by Lubbock, Lartet, Renevier, and Westropp—Plan of the work—No Universal Age of Stone, Bronze, or Iron—Epochs not sharply defined—Outlines of History—Superstitious Notions—Skull from Constatt—Stone hatchet from London—Cavern of Gailenreuth—Axes from Hoxne—Human jaw from Maestricht—Skeleton from Lahr—"Reliquiæ Diluvianæ"—Discoveries by Tournal and Christol—Engis and Enghihoul Caverns—Schmerling's labors—Lyell's opinions—Arrow mark on skull of Cave-Bear—Boucher de Perthes and the Valley of the Somme—Jaw of Moulin-Quignon—Kent's Hole—Fossil Man of Denise—Remains from the Manzanares—Cave of Aurignac—Lyell declares his belief—Lake-Dwellings of Switzerland Neanderthal Skull—Caverns near Torquay—Cave of Massat—Cave of Lourdes—Caverns of Ariége—Tertiary at St. Prest—Implements near Gosport—Bones from Colmar—Implements near Bournemouth—Trou de la Naulette—Bones near Savonia—Reindeer Station—Foreland Cliff—Fossil Man of Mentone—Other Discoveries near Mentone. [11]

[CHAPTER II.]
GLACIAL EPOCH.

Starting point for the investigation—Advance of the ice—Fauna of Europe—Geological Period—Probable Date—Probable Duration—Evidences of the Existence of Man—Implements from Hampshire—Flint tools at Bournemouth—Oval flint from Foreland Cliff—Implements from the Valley of the Somme—Jaw of Moulin-Quignon—Implements from the Seine—Axes near Madrid—Kent's Hole—Brixham Cave—Human jaw from Maestricht—Skeleton from Lahr—Cave of La Naulette—Implements from Hoxne—Bones from Colmar. [25]

[CHAPTER III.]
GLACIAL—CONTINUED.

Belgian Caverns—Caverns of Liége—Engis Skull—Remarks of Prof. Huxley—Views of Busk, Schmerling, Buchner, and Vogt—Neanderthal Skull—Prof. Huxley, Dr. Buchner, and Dr. Fuhlrott on Geological time of Neanderthal Skull—Opinions of Huxley, Buchner, Schaaffhausen, and Busk—Skull from the Loess of the Rhine, Constatt, Cochrane's Cave, Island of Moën, Minsk, and Plau—Borreby Skulls—Human skulls of Arno. [44]

[CHAPTER IV.]
PRE-GLACIAL EPOCHS.

North America during the Tertiary—Europe—Climate—Fauna of Eocene—Of Miocene—Of Pliocene—Traces of Man—Opinions of Lyell, Lubbock, and A. R. Wallace—Man in the Pliocene—Hearth under Osars—Human bones from Savonia—Discoveries at St. Prest—Skull from Altaville—Prof. Denton's Statement—Man in the Miocene—Flints from Pontlevoy—Flint-flake from Aurillac—Marks on bones near Pouance—Implements from Colorado and Wyoming—Eocene—Glacial Periods during the Miocene. [58]

[CHAPTER V.]
CONDITION OF MAN IN THE EARLIEST TIMES.

No knowledge of the first appearance of Man—Fauna of India during the Miocene—Intellect of Man—Contests with the Beasts—A weapon invented—Earliest type—Advancement slow—Climate changes—Sufferings of Man—Known by the Remains—Structure of the Neanderthal Man—Engis Man—Men both large and small—Animal structure of jaws from La Naulette and Moulin-Quignon. [63]

[CHAPTER VI.]
INTER-GLACIAL EPOCH.

Condition of the earth—Numerous traces of Man—Cave of Aurignac—Conclusions of Lartet and Cartailhac—Caverns of Maccagnone—Wokey Hole—Fossil Man of Denise—Reindeer Station on the Schusse—Dr. Buchner's Conclusions. [68]

[CHAPTER VII.]
CONDITION OF MAN IN THE INTER-GLACIAL.

Length of the Inter-Glacial—Man an improvable being—Implements improved—Art of engraving begun—Religious nature—Denton's description of primeval man—Language improved. [76]

[CHAPTER VIII.]
REINDEER EPOCH.

Advance of the Glaciers—Fauna—-Reindeer epoch a distinct one—Evidences of the existence of Man—Caves of Central and Southern France—Implements from Les Eyzies—Relics from La Madeleine—Workshops of Laugerie-Haute and Laugerie-Basse—Cave and rock shelters of Bruniquel—Cave of Gourdan—Fossil Man of Mentone—Other remains near Mentone—Other bone caves of France—Belgian Caverns—Trou de Frontal—Trou Rosette—Trou des Nutons—Cave of Chaleux—Cave at Furfooz—Cave of Thayngen—Cave near Cracow. [79]

[CHAPTER IX.]
MAN OF THE REINDEER EPOCH.

Man under a more favorable aspect—Type of—Dwellings—Clothing—Food—Cannibalism—The Arts—Traffic—Burial—Dupont's Report. [89]

[CHAPTER X.]
NEOLITHIC EPOCH.

How characterized—Caves of this period—Contents of—Cave of Saint Jean d'Alcas—Danish Shell-Mounds—Danish Peat Bogs—Lake-Dwellings of Switzerland—Enumeration of—Robenhausen—Fauna and Flora of—Troyon and Keller on—Other Lake-Dwellings—Chronology. [94]

[CHAPTER XI.]
MAN OF THE NEOLITHIC.

Type of—Advancement—Habitations—Clothing—Food—Arts and Manufactures—Vast number of implements discovered—War—Agriculture—Burial—Dolmens, Tumuli, Cromlechs, and Menhirs—Victims, or Cannibalism. [103]

[CHAPTER XII.]
BRONZE EPOCH.

No direct relation to Antiquity of Man—How characterized—Type—Habitation and Food—Clothing—Implements—Arts—Agriculture—Fishing and Navigation—Burial—Religious Belief—Stone crescents. [108]

[CHAPTER XIII.]
IRON EPOCH.

Civilization established—Swiss Lake-Dwellings—Dr. Keller's Observations. [112]

[CHAPTER XIV.]
TRACES OF MAN IN AMERICA.

Great opportunities for the Archæologist—Aim of the chapter—Skull from Osage Mission—Comstock lode—Charcoal at Toronto—Knife from Kansas—Pelvic bone from Natchez—Skeleton from New Orleans—Remains from the reefs of Florida—Caverns of Brazil—Shell Heaps—Mound-Builders—Extent of Mounds—Implements of—Sacrificial—Sephulchral—Temple—Symbolical—Antiquity of—Fort Shelby—How long the Mound-Builders remained. [114]

[CHAPTER XV.]
WRITTEN HISTORY.

Mystery of Ancient Empires—Rollin's difficulties—Egypt—Manetho's list—Statement of Herodotus—Mariette's explorations—Borings in the mud deposits of the Nile—Dr. Schliemann's discoveries at Troy—History of Chaldea by Berosus—Astronomical calculations—Chinese history—Mexican History. [123]

[CHAPTER XVI.]
LANGUAGE.

A field for study—Three divisions of language—Rhematic period—Origin of—Various theories—Change of—Views of Ancients—Number of—Comparative permancy of written language. [132]

[CHAPTER XVII.]
UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

Objections to the Unity of the Race—Anatomical—Geographical—Disparity of—Non-existence of medium types—Phenomena caused by two united types—Objections answered—Both man and animals affected by climate, food, and condition—Examples—Argument from language—Ocean navigated by frail crafts—Examples—Captain Tyson and party—The two extremes exist in all nations, and even in families—People who have retrograded—Races will amalgamate and perpetuate their kind—Griquas—Papuas—Pitcairn Islanders—Law of hybridity—Close affinity of the races—Slow change of. [136]

[CHAPTER XVIII.]
THE BIBLE.

Controversy—Perversion of meaning—Men of science branded—Design of the chapter—Creation—"Bara"—Day—Man's appearance—Two accounts—Case of Cain—Sons of God—Remarks of Dr. Livingstone—Doctrine of unity of the race—Chronology—The Deluge—Septuagint—Monarchies—The Dispersion—Opinion of Dr. Hedge—No supernatural aid in the formation of Language—What God may do does not imply what he has done—Dean Stanley on the Biblical account of Creation. [143]

A MANUAL

OF THE

ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

No subject, of late years, has so much engrossed the attention of geologists as the antiquity of the human race. The interest was greatly increased by the publication of Sir Charles Lyell's "Antiquity of Man." This work called the attention of the public to the subject, and so great became the interest that many volumes and memoirs have been added to the list, discussing the question in various ways, and, for the most part, in such a manner as to add fresh interest and throw more light on the subject. The scientific men were slow to take advantage of the discoveries continually being made of the bones and works of man found in caves and associated with the remains' of extinct animals. It is probable, even at this late day, there would not have been so much discussion of this subject had not Sir Charles Lyell lent the weight of his great name to it. Educated men, everywhere, began to doubt the correctness of Archbishop Usher's chronology, and so complete has been the revolution of opinion that it is almost impossible to find an intelligent man who would limit the period of man's existence to 6,000 years.

To Aimé Boué, a French geologist, must be attributed the honor of having been the first to proclaim the high antiquity of the human race; to Dr. Schmerling, the learned Belgian osteologist, on account of his laborious investigations, untiring zeal, and great work on the subject, the merited title of being the founder of the new science; to M. Boucher de Perthes, its great apostle; while to Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock must be ascribed the honor of having made the new theory popular.

The new science soon became permanently established, and the geologists at once set about classifying the facts before them, in order to assign to them their respective places in the geological epochs. All are agreed in respect to the chronological orders, but all have not used the same nomenclature, in consequence of which more or less confusion has been the result. Sir J. Lubbock has divided pre-historic archæology into four great epochs, as follows:

"I. That of the Drift; when man shared the possession of Europe with the mammoth, the cave-bear, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, and other extinct animals. This we may call the 'Palæolithic' period.

"II. The later or polished Stone Age; a period characterized by beautiful stone weapons and instruments made of flint and other kinds of stone; in which, however, we find no trace of the knowledge of any metal, excepting gold, which seems to have been sometimes used for ornaments. This we may call the 'Neolithic' period.

"III. The Bronze Age, in which bronze was used for arms and cutting instruments of all kinds.

"IV. The Iron Age, in which that metal had superseded bronze for arms, axes, knives, etc."[1]

These divisions are recognized by Lyell and Tylor.

Edward Lartet has proposed the following classification:

I. THE STONE AGE.

1st. Epoch of extinct animals (or of the great bear and mammoth).

2d. Epoch of migrated existing animals (or the reindeer epoch).

3d. Epoch of domesticated existing animals (or the polished stone epoch).

II. THE METAL AGE.

1st. The Bronze Epoch.

2d. The Iron Epoch.

This mode of division is adopted by M. Figuier, in his "Primitive Man," by the Museum of Saint-Germain in that portion devoted to pre-historic antiquities, and adhered to in essential points by Troyon and d'Archiac.

Professor Renevier, of Lausanne, has proposed a somewhat different scheme, founded upon the epochs of Swiss glaciation. It is as follows:

"I. Pre-glacial Epoch, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the elephant (Elephas antiquus), rhinoceros (R. hemitæchus), and the cave-bear (Ursus spelæus).

"II. Glacial Epoch, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), rhinoceros (R. tichorrhinus), cave-bear, etc.

"III. Post-glacial Epoch, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the mammoth and reindeer (Cervus tarandus).

"IV. Last Epoch, or epoch of the Pile-buildings, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the Irish elk (Megaceros hibernicus), aurochs (Bison Europæus)," etc.[2]

Westropp divides the periods of man, in respect to his stages of civilization, as follows: Savagery, hunters, herdsmen, and agriculturists.

In the following pages a somewhat different classification has been adopted, and may be thus explained:

I. Pre-glacial Epoch; that period antedating the glaciers of the post-tertiary, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the animals of the tertiary, southern elephant (E. meridionalis), etc.

II. Glacial Epoch; that period of the post-tertiary when man was forced to contend with the great ice-fields and the floods immediately succeeding them, when the mammoth (E. primigenius), rhinoceros (R. tichorrhinus), cave-bear, etc., began to flourish.

III. Interglacial Epoch; that period between the glacial and the second advance of the ice, in which man lived cotemporaneously with the animals of the preceding epoch, and the cave bear became extinct.

IV. Reindeer Epoch; that period when the glaciers again advanced; in which man's chief food consisted of the flesh of the reindeer (C. tarandus), that animal having made its way in numerous herds as far south as the Pyrenees.

V. Neolithic Epoch; that period in which man polished his weapons of stone, and sought to domesticate certain animals, the dog, etc.

VI. Bronze Epoch; that period characterized by weapons and implements being made chiefly of bronze.

VII. Iron Epoch; that period in which bronze was generally superseded by iron.

This classification, on the whole, seems to be the best that could be devised, for the reason it attempts to place the evidences of the existence of man in their relative geological positions.

Other methods have misled the student. There was no universal Stone, Bronze, or Iron Age. The classification given by Lubbock applies to Europe, but is too general. I have adopted the word "Neolithic" for want of a better term, although the signification of the word is appropriate to the period it is intended to represent.

These various epochs are not sharply defined, the one from the other; but one merges into the other by gradual progression covering a period of thousands of years. The growth of the various plants and animals, and their retreat or final extinction, have also been very slow.

An outline of the history of the discoveries which led to a careful investigation of the question, and which resolved the question into a science, is not only one of interest but also of importance to the careful thinker seeking information on the subject.

Prior to the study of the ancient implements the "people had so little notion of the nature and signification of the stone axes and weapons of earlier and later times that they were regarded with superstitious fear and hope, and as productions of lightning and thunder. Hence for a long time they were called thunderbolts even by the learned.... As late as the year 1734 when Mahndel explained in the Academy of Paris that these stones were human implements, he was laughed at, because he had not proved that they could not have been formed in the clouds."[3]

As early as the year 1700, a human skull was dug out of the calcareous tuff of Constatt, in company with the bones of the mammoth. It is preserved in the Natural History Museum at Stuttgart.

In the year 1715, an Englishman named Kemp found in London, by the side of elephants' teeth, a stone hatchet, similar to those which have been subsequently found in great numbers in different parts of the world. This hatchet is still preserved in the British Museum.

In 1774, in the cavern of Gailenreuth, Bavaria, J. F. Esper discovered some human bones mingled with the remains of extinct animals.

In 1797, unpolished flint axes were dug out in great numbers from a brick-field near Hoxne, county of Suffolk, where they occurred at a depth of twelve feet, mingled with the bones of extinct species of animals. They were gathered up and thrown by basketsful upon the neighboring road. In the year 1801, before the Society of Antiquaries, John Frere read a paper upon them, in which he stated that they pointed to a very remote period. This communication, short as it was, contained the essence of all subsequent discoveries and speculations as to the antiquity of man. But the society regarded the subject as of no importance.

During the construction of a canal (1815-1823) in Hollerd, there was found, near Maestricht, in the loess, a human jaw in company with the bones of extinct animals. This bone is preserved in the museum at Leyden.

In 1823, Aimé Boué disinterred portions of a human skeleton from ancient undisturbed loess near Lahr, a small village nearly opposite Strasbourg. These bones were placed in the care of Cuvier, but, having been neglected, are now lost.

In the same year, Dr. Buckland, an English geologist, published his "Reliquiæ Diluvianæ," a work principally devoted to a description of the Kirkdale Cave. The author combined all the known facts which favored the coexistence of man, with the extinct animals.

In 1828, M. Tournal and M. Christol explored numerous caverns in the south of France. In the cavern of Bize, Tournal found human bones and teeth, and fragments of rude pottery, together with the bones of both living and extinct species of animals, imbedded in the same mud and breccia, cemented by stalagmite. The human bones were in the same chemical condition as those of the extinct species.

M. Christol found in the cavern of Pondres, near Nimes, some human bones in the same mud with the bones of an extinct hyena and rhinoceros.

In 1833, Dr. Schmerling explored the two bone-caverns of Engis and Enghihoul (Belgium). In the former he found the Engis skull (now in the museum of the University of Liége), at a depth of nearly five feet, under an osseous breccia. The earth also contained the teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyena, and bear, and exhibited no marks of disturbance. He also found the skull of a young person imbedded by the side of a mammoth's tooth. It was entire, but so fragile, that it fell to pieces before it was extracted. In the cave of Enghihoul he found numerous bones belonging to three human individuals, mingled with the bones of extinct animals. In these caves he noted rude flint instruments, but did not collect many of them. In the care of Chokier, he discovered a polished and jointed needle-shaped bone, with a hole pierced through it, at its base. The caves of Engis and Chokier have been annihilated, while only a part of Enghihoul remains.

Soon after these discoveries Dr. Schmerling published a work which described and represented a vast quantity of objects which had been discovered in the Belgian caverns. The scientific men were not yet prepared to receive the new discoveries, and it attracted but little attention at that time.

Too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Dr. Schmerling for his unremitting labors. Of these labors Sir Charles Lyell has said: "To have undertaken, in 1832, with a view of testing its truth (antiquity of fossil human bones) to follow the Belgian philosopher through every stage of his observations and proofs, would have been no easy task even for one well-skilled in geology and osteology. To be let down, as Schmerling was, day after day, by a rope tied to a tree, so as to slide to the foot of the first opening of the Engis cave, where the best-preserved human skulls were found; and, after thus gaining access to the first subterranean gallery, to creep on all fours through a contracted passage leading to larger chambers, there to superintend by torchlight, week after week and year after year, the workmen who were breaking through the stalagmitic crust as hard as marble, in order to remove piece by piece the underlying bone-breccia nearly as hard; to stand for hours with one's feet in the mud, and with water dripping from the roof on one's head, in order to mark the position and guard against the loss of each single bone of a skeleton; and at length, after finding leisure, strength, and courage for all these operations, to look forward, as the fruits of one's labor, to the publication of unwelcome intelligence, opposed to the prepossessions of the scientific as well as the unscientific public;—when these circumstances are taken into account, we need scarcely wonder.... that a quarter of a century should have elapsed before even the neighboring professors of the University of Liége came forth to vindicate the truthfulness of their indefatigable and clear-sighted countryman."[4]

In 1835, M. Joly, then professor at the Lyceum of Montpellier, found in the cave of Nabrigas (Lozére) the skull of a cave-bear, on which an arrow had left its mark. Close by, was a fragment of pottery marked by the finger of the moulder.

It was in the valley of the Somme (a river in the north of France) that M. Boucher de Perthes found those famous flint-axes of the rudest form. His explorations had been going on for a long time. He did all he could to bring these discoveries before the public. In the year 1836 he began to proclaim the high antiquity of man, in a series of communications addressed to the Société d'Emulation of Abbeville. To the same society, in the year 1838, he exhibited the flint-axes he had found, but without result. In 1839, he took these hatchets to Paris, and showed them to some of the members of the Institute. At first they gave some encouragement toward these researches; but this favorable feeling did not last long. In 1841 he began to form his collection, which has since become so justly celebrated. He engaged trained workmen to dig in the diluvial beds, and in a short time he had collected twenty specimens of flint wrought by the hand of man, though in a very rude state. In 1846, he published his first work on the subject, entitled "De l'Industrie Primitive, ou les Arts et leur Origine." In the following year he published his "Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes," in which he gave illustrations of these stone implements. This work attracted no attention until the year 1854, when a French savant, named Rigollot, made a personal examination and was successful in his search for these relicts in the neighborhood of Amiens. He was soon followed by Sir C. Lyell, Sir John Lubbock, Dr. Falconer, Sir Roderick I. Murchison, and other eminent scientists.

Boucher de Perthes, continuing his researches, was rewarded, in the year 1863, by finding the lower half of a human jaw bone, covered with an earthy crust, which he extracted with his own hands from a gravel-pit at Abbeville. A few inches from it a flint hatchet was discovered. They were at a depth of fifteen feet below the surface. This bone has been called the jaw of Moulin-Quignon, and is preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Paris.

The discovery of this bone produced a great sensation among English geologists. Christy, Falconer, Carpenter, and Busk went to France and examined the locality where the bone was found. They went away satisfied with both its authenticity and antiquity. Some geologists, however, doubted its authenticity; but at the present time all, or nearly all, recognize the truth of the conclusions of Boucher de Perthes.

Not far from the same locality, he was again successful, in 1869, in finding a number of human bones presenting the same character as the jaw of Moulin-Quignon.

In 1840, Rev. J. MacEnery, of Devonshire, England, found in a cave, called Kent's Hole, human bones and flint knives among the remains of the mammoth, cave-bear, hyena, and two-horned rhinoceros, all from under a crust of stalagmite. Mr. MacEnery began the explorations of this cave as early as 1825. He did not publish his notes on his discoveries but they remained in manuscript until 1859, when they were obtained by Mr. Vivian.

Mr. Godwin-Austen, in his communication to the Geological Society in the year 1840, states, in his description of Kent's Hole, he found works of art in all parts of the cave.

The fossil Man of Denise was discovered by a peasant, in an old volcanic tuff, near the town of Le Puy-en-Velay, Central France, an account of which was first published by Dr. Aymard, in 1844. Able naturalists, who have examined these bones, especially those familiar with the volcanic regions of Central France, declared that they believed them to have been enveloped by natural causes in the tufaceous matrix in which they are now seen.

In the years 1845-1850, Casiano de Prado made discoveries on the banks of the Manzanares, near Madrid. They consisted of portions of the skeletons of the rhinoceros, and a nearly perfect skeleton of an elephant in the diluvial sand. Lying beneath this ossiferous sand, were several flint axes of human workmanship.

Fig. 1.
Sir Charles Lyell.

Near the town of Aurignac, France, a workman named Bonnemaison, in the year 1852, accidently discovered a cave containing the remains of seventeen human skeletons. These bones were taken by Dr. Amiel, the mayor of Aurignac, who was ignorant of their value, and consigned to the parish cemetery. The spot of their re-inhumation has been forgotten, and this treasure is now lost to science. In 1860, the cave was explored by Edward Lartet. After a long and patient examination, he came to the conclusion that the cave was a human burial place, cotemporary with the mammoth and other great animals of the quaternary epoch.

It was at the meeting of the British Association, in 1855, that Sir Charles Lyell declared his belief in the great antiquity of the human race. He had before opposed the idea, but was convinced of the truth by personal examination of human bones and flint hatchets, from the quarries of St. Acheul. He became enthusiastic in his investigations, and, in order to present the discussion clearly to the scientific public, he published his "Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man," in 1863. In the last edition of his "Principles of Geology," he bestows considerable space to the discussion of the subject. He was closely followed, in the same view, by other eminent geologists.

The remains of the ancient Lake Dwellings of Switzerland were discovered in the winter of 1853-1854. That winter was so dry and cold that the water of the lakes fell far below its ordinary level. On account of this, a large tract of ground of Lake Zurich was gained by the people throwing up embankments. In the process of the work, the piles on which stood the dwellings, fragments of pottery, bone and stone implements, and various other relics, were discovered.[5] Dr. Keller, of Zurich, examined the objects, and at once came to a right understanding as to their signification. He carefully examined the remains, and described these lake habitations in six memoirs presented to the Antiquarian Society of Zurich, in 1854, 1858, 1860, 1863, and 1866. In 1866 these memoirs were translated into English by J. E. Lee, together with articles from other antiquaries, under the title of "The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, and other parts of Europe." This work contains ninety-seven plates, besides many wood-cuts.

Memoirs of the Dwellers of different lakes have, from time to time, been published, but they are included in the translated work of Dr. Keller.

The far-famed Neanderthal skull was discovered by Dr. Fuhlrott, in the year 1857, in a limestone cavern, near Düsseldorf, in a deep ravine known by the name of Neanderthal. This skull, with parts of the skeleton to which it belonged, was found under a layer of mud, about five feet in thickness. It is now in the cabinet of Dr. Fuhlrott, Elberfeld, Rhenish Prussia.

In 1858, a bone-cavern was found near Torquay, not far from Kent's Hole. This cave was examined by a scientific commission. At first it was undertaken by the Royal Society, but when its grants had failed, Miss Burdett-Coutts paid the expenses of completing the work. In this cave, under a layer of stalagmite, were found many flint knives, associated with the bones of extinct mammals.

M. A. Fontan found in the cave of Massat (Department of Ariége), in 1859, human teeth and utensils associated with the remains of the cave-bear, the fossil hyena, and the cave-lion (Felis spelœa).

In 1861, M. A. Milne Edwards found certain relics of human industry mingled with the fossil bones of animals, in the cave of Lourdes, France.

In 1862, Dr. Garrigou published the result of the researches which he, in conjunction with Rames and Filhol, had made in the caverns of Ariége. These explorers found the jaw-bones of the cave-bear and cave-lion, which had been wrought by the hands of man.

In the upper strata of the tertiary beds (pliocene) at St. Prest (Department of Eure), in the year 1863, M. Desnoyers found the bones of extinct animals which were cut or notched by flint instruments. In the same strata Abbé Bourgeois discovered implements of stone. He communicated his discoveries to the International Congress held at Paris in 1867.

In 1864, James Brown found flint implements midway between Gosport and Southampton, included in gravel from eight to twelve feet thick, capping a cliff which at its greatest height is thirty-five feet above high-water mark. These flint tools exactly resemble those found at Abbeville and Amiens. Some of them are preserved in the Blackmore Museum at Salisbury.

In 1865, there was found in the loess of the Rhine, near Colmar, Alsace, human bones in the same bed with bones of the mammoth, horse, stag, auroch, and other animals.

In 1866, Alfred Stevens first dug out a hatchet from the gravel at the top of the sea-cliff east of the Bournemouth opening, Southampton river. Soon after, Dr. Blackmore, to the west of the valley, obtained two other flint implements. The spot was examined by Lyell in 1867.

Dr. Edward Dupont, an eminent Belgian cave explorer, in the year 1866, found a fragment of a human jaw in the Trou de la Naulette, a bone cave situated on the bank of the river Lesse not far from Chaleux.

At the International Congress of 1867, M. A. Issel reported he had found several human bones in beds of Pliocene age, near Savonia, in Liguria.

The Reindeer Station on the Schusse, in Swabia, was discovered in 1867, during the operations undertaken for the improvement of a mill-pond. The Schusse is a little river which flows into the lake of Constance, and its source is upon the high plateau of Upper Swabia between the lake of Constance and the upper course of the Danube.

In 1868, Thomas Codrington discovered an oval flint implement in gravel at the top of the Foreland Cliff, Isle of Wight, five miles southeast of Ryde.

The fossil Man of Mentone was discovered, in 1873, by M. Riviére, in a cave near Nice, France. The skeleton was almost entire, and imbedded twenty feet below the surface of the deposit.

In 1873, M. Riviére discovered another human skeleton, by the side of which lay a few unpolished stone implements, in one of the caves in the same neighborhood.

In 1873 and 1874, M. Riviére was again so fortunate as to discover, in neighboring caves, the remains of three persons, two of them those of children. The skeletons were in the same condition, and decked with similar ornaments, as those he had previously discovered.

CHAPTER II.

GLACIAL EPOCH.

Happily for the Archæo-geologist, there is given him a point from which to start in his researches into the antiquity of his race. Without it his calculations would be very indefinite and his efforts would be shorn of much of their interest. The Glacial Epoch, that has puzzled the mind of both the geologist and the astronomer, is a guide-post where he may not only look both ways, but also estimate the length of ages and number the years of man. Nothing, then, is of more importance, in this investigation, than an understanding of the condition of the earth prior to the glacial, and the knowledge of the date and length of this epoch.

For untold ages the earth, to all appearance, had been preparing itself for the reception of man. There was an abundance of game, the forests were beautiful, the domestic animals had made their appearance, the climate was warm, the soil rich, and the coal had been formed. Everything seemed to point to a bright and glorious future for man, who had already entered upon the scene. It is true there were fierce and savage beasts to contend with. These seemed but a motive power to stir man to action and develop the resources of his mind. Should he fail for a time to overcome the wild beasts a retreat was provided in the hollow recesses of the earth. But nature felt her work was still unfinished. The earth had passed through the ordeal of fire, and withstood the devastations of water, and now her long summer must come to an end. The arctic regions had been growing colder and colder, and the change was felt in the countries to the south. The northern animals were being clothed with a hairy or woolly garment for their protection. The aspect began to be forbidding. The future prospect of man was not only gloomy, but foreboded he should perish along with the many species of animals that were gradually succumbing to the cold. Great fields of ice were slowly accumulating at both the poles, and at last, by the power of their great weight, assisted by some geographical changes, began to move toward the equator, crushing and grinding the great rocks, and either driving before them, or else destroying, every living thing in their relentless march. Slowly but surely they moved on. The mountains groaned under the enormous weight of ice. Their heads were scarred, their sides bruised, torn and cut. The icy monsters listened not to the pleadings of earth, the lowing of cattle, or the cries of man. Centuries elapsed before the sun re-asserted his power. The rays of the sun, the internal heat of the earth, and other causes, produced a change. The northern ice was broken up by the time it reached latitude 39° North America, leaving its indelible traces in the bowlders, gravel, beds of sand and clay which mark its course. In Europe this sheet of ice extended as far south as Spain and Corsica. The glaciers of the Antarctic regions extended as far as latitude 41° south.

Fauna of Europe.—Among the Fauna may be mentioned the gigantic elephants, of nearly twice the bulk of the largest individuals that now exist, which roamed in herds over England, and extended across the Siberian plains and from Behring Strait to South Carolina. Two-horned rhinoceroses wallowed in the swamps of the ancient forests. Hippopotamuses inhabited the lakes and rivers. The great cave-bear, which sometimes attained the size of a horse, and the cave-tiger, twice as large as the living tiger, preyed upon the animals of less strength than themselves. Troops of hyenas, larger than those of South America, disputed with other beasts of prey. A species of wild-cat, lynx, and leopard found retreats in the same forests. Then there was a remarkable carnivorous animal called Machairodus, about the size of a tiger, and from the shape and size of the sword-like teeth, must have been a very destructive creature. The lemming and the musk ox found a home, and the wild horse pranced about unrestrained by the hand of man. The great Irish elks swiftly moved over the ground, and must have been very numerous, as their remains occur in abundance in peat-bogs and marl-pits. Nor should it be unmentioned that there was also a species of gigantic ox nearly as large as an elephant, that subsisted on the plains. All these animals followed the retreat of the glaciers and some of them were in close proximity to the ice.

Geological Period.—The glacial epoch occurred during the geological period known as the post-tertiary. The tertiary had gradually passed away and its time had been recorded on the pages of geological history. A new epoch began to dawn. This was the epoch of ice, the birth and almost the childhood of the post-tertiary.

Probable Date.—In discussing the probable date of the glacial epoch, Sir Charles Lyell says, "The attempt to assign a chronological value to any of our geological periods except the latest, must, in the present state of science, be hopeless. Nevertheless, independently of all astronomical considerations, it must, I think, be conceded that the period required for the coming on of the greatest cold, and for its duration when most intense, and the oscillations to which it was subject, as well as the retreat of the glaciers and the 'great thaw' or disappearance of snow from many mountain-chains where the snow was once perpetual, required not tens but hundreds of thousands of years. Less time would not suffice for the changes in physical geography and organic life of which we have evidence. To a geologist, therefore, it would not appear startling that the greatest cold should be supposed to have been two hundred thousand years ago, although this date must be considered as very conjectural, and one which may be as likely to err in deficiency of time as in excess."[6]

Sir John Lubbock, in his dissent from some calculations made by Mr. Geikie on the general effect produced by rivers in excavating valleys and lowering the general level of the country, says, "As regards the higher districts, however, his data are perhaps not far wrong, and if we apply them to the valley of the Somme, where the excavation is about two hundred feet in depth, they would indicate an antiquity for the palæolithic epoch of from one hundred thousand to two hundred and forty thousand years."[7]

Dana, in his chapter on the length of geological time, says, in speaking of the time required to excavate the gorge of Niagara River, that "on both sides of the gorge near the whirlpool, and also at Goat Island, there are beds of recent lake shells ... the same kinds that live in still water near the entrance to the lake, and which are not found in the rapids. The lake, therefore, spread its still waters, when these beds were formed, over the gorge above the whirlpool. A tooth of a mastodon (M. giganteus) has been found in the same beds. This locates the time in the Champlain epoch.... Six miles of the gorge have been excavated since that mastodon was alive....

"There is a lateral valley leading from the whirlpool through the Queenstown precipice at a point a few miles west of Lewiston. This valley is filled with drift of the glacial epoch, and this blocking up of the channel may have compelled it to open a new passage.

"If, then, the falls have been receding six miles, and we can ascertain the probable rate of progress, we may approximate to the length of time it required. Hall and Lyell estimated the average rate at one foot a year,—which is certainly large. Mr. Desor concluded, after his study of the falls, that it was 'more nearly three feet a century than three feet a year.' Taking the rate at one foot a year, the six miles will have required over thirty-one thousand years; if at one inch a year—which is eight and one third feet a century—three hundred and eighty thousand years."[8]

The calculation made by Dana is for the Champlain epoch. As this epoch was subsequent to the glacial, the time must be either thrown still farther back, or else allow the calculations to begin with the end of the glacial.

Probable Duration.—Lyell has attempted to form an estimate of the duration of the glacial epoch by considering "the most simple series of changes in physical geography which can possibly account for the phenomena of the glacial period," and enumerates as follows:

"First, a continental period, toward the close of which the forest of Cromer flourished; when the land was at least five hundred feet above its present level, perhaps much higher, and its extent probably greater than that given in the map, Fig. 41." (In this map the whole of the British Isles are connected with one another, and with the continent—the German Ocean and the English Channel constituting dry land).

"Secondly, a period of submergence, by which the land north of the Thames and Bristol Channel, and that of Ireland, was gradually reduced to an archipelago; and finally to such a general prevalence of sea as is seen in map, Fig. 39." (This map is intended to represent the British Isles as they appeared above water when Scotland was submerged to two thousand feet and other parts of the isles to one thousand three hundred feet.) "This was the period of submergence and of floating ice, when the Scandinavian flora, which occupied the lower grounds during the first continental period, may have obtained exclusive possession of the only lands not covered with perpetual snow.

"Thirdly, a second continental period, when the bed of the glacial sea, with its marine shells and erratic blocks, was laid dry, and when the quantity of land equalled that of the first period.... During this period there were glaciers in the higher mountains of Scotland and Wales....

"The submergence of Wales to the extent of one thousand four hundred feet, as proved by glacial shells, would require fifty-six thousand years, at the rate of two and a half feet per century; but taking Professor Ramsay's estimate of eight hundred feet more, that depression being required for the deposition of some of the stratified drift, we must demand an additional period of thirty-two thousand years, amounting in all to eighty-eight thousand; and the same time would be required for the reëlevation of the tract to its present height. But if the land rose in the second continental period no more than six hundred above the present level ... this ... would have taken another twenty-six thousand years; the whole of the grand oscillation, comprising the submergence and reëmergence, having taken, in round numbers, two hundred and twenty-four thousand 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."[9]

Lyell admits that the average rate of two and a half feet per century is a purely arbitrary and conjectural one, and there are cases where the change is even six feet a century, yet the average rate of motion, he thinks, will not exceed that above proposed. With this opinion, Lubbock believes most geologists will agree.[10]

By the estimates already given a basis is formed upon which a calculation can be made as to the time when this epoch began. At the time of the most intense cold the eccentricity of the earth's orbit was .0575; the difference in millions of miles between the greatest and least distances of the earth from the sun 10½; the number of days by which winter, occurring in aphelion was longer than the summer in perihelion 27.8; the mean temperature of the hottest summer month in the latitude of London when the summer occurs in perihelion, 113°; the mean temperature of the coldest winter month in the latitude of London when the winter occurs in aphelion, 0° 7'. Sixty thousand years later the eccentricity of the earth's orbit was but .0332; the difference of distance in millions of miles was 6; number of winter days in excess, 16.1; mean of hottest month in latitude of London, 95°, and mean of coldest month 12°. It is evident then at this time (one hundred and fifty thousand years ago) a "great thaw" had taken place and the glaciers driven back, although fifty thousand years later less intense cold set in again. If thirty thousand years be allowed for the "great thaw" from the extreme point of cold, and that extreme point to have been two hundred and ten thousand years ago, then one hundred and eighty thousand years ago the glaciers had become so broken up as to allow vegetation to spring up in many localities, and the wild beasts to partially reassert their dominion. If to this be added the time required for the duration of the glacial epoch (two hundred and twenty-four thousand years) then the time when the ice began to accumulate was four hundred and four thousand years ago. But if the tables of Mr. Croll be correct, their beginning could not have been earlier than three hundred and fifty thousand years ago, as the eccentricity of the earth's orbit varied but little from the present, and five hundred and fifty thousand years ago it was almost identical with that of the present.[11]

During the last stages of this ocean of ice it must have melted very rapidly,[12] for great rivers were formed, and the water pouring down its icy bed sought other streams, and on the bosom of the earth swept away loose sediment, depositing it along the course of rivers and in caves of the earth, covering the remains of man along with those of animals that perished during the long winter of ice.

Fig. 2.
Stream issuing from a Glacier.

Evidences of the Existence of Man.—The traces of man in the deposits made during the glacial epoch are numerous. Out of the many, the most noted will be given, with a view to their chronological order.

In all probability the very oldest implements of the post-tertiary, and consequently the beginning of the glacial epoch, if not of the pliocene, are those found in the south of Hampshire, between Gosport and Southampton. They came from a tabular mass of drift which caps the tertiary strata. "The great bed of gravel resting on eocene tertiary strata, in which these implements have been found, consists in most places of half-rolled or semi-angular chalk flints, mixed with rounded pebbles washed out of the tertiary strata.... Many of them exhibit the same colors and ochreous stain as do the flints in the gravel in which they lay."

West of the Southampton estuary, "on both sides of the opening at Bournemouth, flint tools of the ancient type have been met with in the gravel capping the cliffs. The gravel from which the flint tool was taken at Bournemouth is about one hundred feet above the level of the sea.... The gravel consists in great part of pebbles derived from tertiary strata."

The oval flint implement discovered in gravel at the top of the Foreland cliff "is of the true palæolithic type, and the gravel in which it is imbedded at the height of about eighty feet above the level of the sea, may have once extended to the cliffs near Gosport; in which case we should have to infer that the channel called the Solent had not yet been scooped out when this region was inhabited by palæolithic man."[13]

It may be safely inferred that the implements in the above three enumerations were imbedded at about the same time.

The flint implements from the valley of the Somme, which have been of so much interest, and convinced so many sceptical geologists, belong to the early part of this epoch. This valley may be represented by Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.
Section Across the Somme in Picardy.

1. Peat, twenty to thirty feet thick, resting on gravel, a.
2. Lower level gravel, with elephants' bones and flint tools covered with fluviatile loam, twenty to forty feet thick.
3. Upper level gravel, with similar fossils, and overlying loam. In all thirty feet thick.
4. Upland loam without shells, five or six feet thick.
5. Eocene tertiary strata, resting on the chalk in patches.

In explanation of the above it may be well to remark that No. 2 indicates the lower level gravels, and No. 3 the higher ones, which are from eighty to one hundred feet above the river. Of a later date than these is the peat, No. 1, which is from ten to thirty feet in thickness. Underneath the peat is a bed of gravel, a, from three to fourteen feet thick, resting on undisturbed chalk. But between the gravel and the peat is a thin layer of impervious clay. This section of the valley of the Somme is a pretty fair representation of the arrangements of the different beds at Abbeville, Amiens, and and St. Acheul.

In these beds are the records of two drift periods, marked by 2 and 3. The two are separated by a layer of fresh-water deposits, which contains river shells and is sometimes as much as sixteen feet thick. The lower, or gray diluvium, (No. 2), marks the glacial epoch, as distinct from the glaciers of the reindeer epoch. In the lower gravel, lying immediately upon the tertiary formation, were found the flint hatchets, together with the bones of the mammoth and fossil rhinoceros.

In order to understand the deposits still more clearly, the following figure is given.

Fig. 4.
Section of a Gravel-pit at St. Acheul.

1. Vegetable and made soil from two to three feet thick.

2. Brown loam from four to five feet thick, containing a few angular flints.

3. Bed of sandy marl from five to six feet thick, with land and fresh-water shells, covered with a thin layer of angular gravel from one to two feet thick.

4. A bed of partially rounded gravel containing well-rolled tertiary pebbles. In this bed the flint implements are chiefly found—ten to fourteen feet thick.

5. Formation of chalk.
a. Part of elephant's molar, eleven feet from surface.
b. Entire molar of mammoth (E primigenius), seventeen feet from surface.
c. Position of flint hatchet, eighteen feet from surface.
d. Gravel projecting five feet.

At St. Acheul, in bed No. 4, were found large numbers of flint implements. Some of them have the shape of a spear-head, and are over seven inches in length. The oval-shaped hatchets are so rude in some instances as to require a practised eye to decide their human origin. In the same bed are found small round bodies having a tubular cavity in the centre. Dr. Rigollot has suggested that these perforated stones or gravel were used as ornaments, possibly strung together as beads.

In this bed, No. 4, seventeen feet from the surface, was found a mammoth's tooth. About one foot below the tooth, in densely compressed gravel, was found a stone hatchet of an oval form.

Fig. 5.
Flint Implement From St. Acheul.

Half the size of the original, which is seven and a half inches long.
a. Side view.
b. Same seen edgewise.

"These spear-headed implements have been found in greater number, proportionally to the oval ones, in the upper level gravel at St. Acheul, than in any of the lower gravels in the valley of the Somme. In these last, the oval form predominates, especially at Abbeville."—Antiquity of Man, p. 114.

That this bed was formed by action of glaciers is shown, not only from the well-rounded tertiary pebbles, but also from the great blocks of hard sandstone, some of which are over four feet in diameter. These large fragments not only abound at St. Acheul in both the higher and lower level gravels at Amiens, and at the higher level at Abbeville, but they are also traced far up the valley wherever the old diluvium occurs. All of these sandstones have been derived from the tertiary strata which once covered the chalk.

Fig. 6.
Flint Implement from Abbeville.

a. Oval-shaped flint hatchet from Mautort near Abbeville, half size of original, which is five and a half inches long, from a bed of gravel underlying the fluvio-marine stratum.

b. Same seen edgewise.

c. Shows a recent fracture of the edge of the same at the point a, or near the top. This portion of the tool, c, is drawn of the natural size, the black central part being the unaltered flint, the white outer coating, the layer which has been formed by discoloration or bleaching since the tool was first made.

The entire surface of Figure 6 must have been black when first shaped, and the bleaching to such a depth must have been the work of time, whether produced by exposure to the sun and air before it was imbedded, or afterward when it lay deep in the soil.—Antiquity of Man.

As the flint implements of Abbeville and Amiens are the same as those of St. Acheul, and from the same beds, what has already been said will apply to them. These implements have been found in these localities in great numbers, as several thousand of them already taken from the beds will amply testify.

From the gravel-pit in which were found the flint axes, at Abbeville, and close to the ancient chalk, was taken the celebrated human bone known as the jaw of Moulin-Quignon. It was cotemporary with the axes, and undoubtedly some of the flint implements there found were fashioned by the man of whom that jaw formed so necessary a part.

This jaw-bone belonged to an old man, and is described as displaying "a tendency toward the animal structure in the shortness and breadth of the ascending ramus (the perpendicular portion of the lower jaw), the equal height of the two apophyses (a process or regular prominence forming a continuous part of the body of the bone), the indication of prognathism (projecting jaw) furnished by the very obtuse angle at which the ramus joins the body of the bone.[14]

Near the same locality other human bones were discovered Which presented the same characteristics.

Boucher de Perthes having pointed out that flint implements could be found in the valley of the Seine, in beds similar to those of Abbeville, the antiquaries were soon rewarded and Boucher de Perthes' prediction was fulfilled. M. Gosse, of Geneva, found the Abbeville type of implements in the lowest diluvial deposits associated with the remains of animals of that period.

The discovery made by Casiano de Prado, near Madrid, is very similar to those of Abbeville. "First, vegetable soil; then about twenty-five feet of sand and pebbles, under which was a layer of sandy loam, in which, during the year 1850, a complete skeleton of the mammoth was discovered. Underneath this stratum was about ten feet of coarse gravel, in which some flint axes, very closely resembling those of Amiens, have been discovered."[15]

The remains of man are also preserved in caverns associated with the fossil bones of the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, cave-bear, and other extinct quadrupeds. Among these should be noticed Kent's Hole, which has furnished a mine of wealth. Of his discoveries Godwin-Austen says: "Human remains and works of art, such as arrow-heads and knives of flint, occur in all parts of the cave, and throughout the entire thickness of the clay; and no distinction founded on condition, distribution, or relative position can be observed, whereby the human can be separated from the other reliquiæ," which included bones of the mammoth (E. primigenius), rhinoceros (R. tichorrhinus), cave-bear (Ursus spelæus), cave-hyena (H. spelæus), and other mammalia. These researches were conducted in parts of the cave which had never been disturbed, and the works of man, in every instance, were procured from undisturbed loam or clay, beneath a thick covering of stalagmite; and all these must have been introduced before the stalagmite flooring had been formed.[16] These specimens of man's handicraft were found far below the stalagmite floor.[17] Closely allied to Kent's Hole is Brixham Cave. The following gives the general succession of deposits forming the contents of the cavern:

1. A layer of stalagmite varying from one to fifteen inches in thickness.

2. Next below, ochreous cave-earth, from one foot to fifteen feet in thickness.

3. Rounded gravel, in some places more than twenty feet in depth.

In the second layer there were found the remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, cave-bear, cave-hyena, cave-lion, reindeer, and seven other species. Indiscriminately mixed with these bones were found many flint knives, but chiefly from the lowest part of the ochreous cave-earth, varying in depth from ten inches to thirteen feet. The antiquity of these cannot be doubted, from the simple fact, even if there was no other, that in close proximity to a very perfect flint tool was discovered the entire left hind leg of a cave-bear, and every bone in its natural position. From the bone earth there were taken fifteen knives, recognized, by the experienced antiquaries, as having been artificially formed. In the lowest gravel, underlying all, there were found imperfect specimens of flint knives. The fine layer of mud was deposited by the slow but regular action of water. Since these layers were formed the stream has cut its channel seventy-eight feet below its former level.[18]

On both banks of the Meuse, at Maestricht (Hollerd) are terraces of gravel covered with loess. Below the city, on the left bank, one of these terraces projects into the alluvial plain of the Meuse. During the construction of the canal the terrace was opened to a depth of sixty feet. The upper twenty feet consisted of loess and the lower forty feet of stratified gravel. Great numbers of molars, tusks, and bones of elephants, together with those of other mammalia, and a human lower jaw with teeth, were found in or near this gravel. The human jaw was at a depth of nineteen feet from the surface, in a stratum of sandy loam, beneath a stratum of pebbly and sandy beds, and immediately above the gravel. The stratum from which the jaw was taken was intact and had never been disturbed. But the jaw was somewhat isolated, and the nearest fossil object was the tusk of an elephant six yards distant, though on a horizontal plane. This fossil is probably older than that discovered at Lahr. It was probably covered just before the gush of the water when it first began to flow from the gorges and had washed the ground at some distance from the ice.[19]

The human skeleton from the undisturbed loess of the Rhine, near Lahr, was found in nearly a horizontal position, but in such a manner as to forbid the idea of sepulchre. These bones were exhumed from a perpendicular cliff of solid loess, about five feet high. The town of Lahr is situated four miles from, and about one hundred feet above, the Rhine, and not far from the tributary valley drained by the Schutter, flowing from the Black Forest.

In the alluvial plain into which the Schutter flows the the loess is two hundred feet thick. The loess rises eighty feet above the Schutter. At Lahr it has been denuded so as to form a succession of terraces on the right bank. It was in the lowest of these from which the skeleton was taken. Immediately below this bed there were found pebbles, and still lower down was a bed of gravel containing rounded stones of sandstone and gneiss from the Black Forest.

There are several interesting facts connected with this discovery. M. Boué considers that the loess of the Lahr is continuous with that of the Rhine, and before the loess had been denuded there was not less than eighty feet of loamy deposit above the human skeleton. The glaciers had deposited their great gravel beds, and had began to melt. The melting of them had formed a mixture of loam and gravel. Then when the torrents poured forth from the glaciers the loam was formed without the pebbles. The unfortunate man, whose remains were found, was buried far beneath the surface, during the very first part of the course of the violent streams pouring forth from the field of ice. The glaciers were then on the retreat, and the incautious man probably fell a victim while on the chase.[20]

The cave of La Naulette, Belgium, afforded a jaw-bone similar to the Moulin-Quignon. The bone came from a river deposit of loam covered with a layer of stalagmite, and at a depth of thirteen feet from the surface. Associated with it were the remains of the mammoth, woolly-haired rhinoceros, and flint implements. These implements present the same type as those of St. Acheul. With this jaw were also found a human ulna, two human teeth, and a fragment of a worked reindeer born. This jaw-bone is very thick, round in form, and the projection of the chin is almost entirely absent. The chin is said to hold an intermediate position between that of the animals and those of the present race of men. The cavities for the reception of the canine teeth are very wide, and one of the most remarkable things is that the three molars are reversed, that is the first true molar is the smallest, and the last the largest. The inner surface of the jaw at the point of the suture or symphysis, forms a line obliquely directed upwards. Taking the jaw all in all, it is the most ape-like human jaw ever discovered.[21]

The flint implements from Hoxne were found under three different layers or beds. The first, vegetable, a foot and a half in depth. The second was clay, seven and a half feet thick. The third, a bed of sand, with shells one foot in thickness. The fourth layer, containing the implements was a bed of gravel two feet in depth. The number of these flints was so great that they were carried out by the baskets-full, and thrown into the ruts of the adjoining road. On account of the great number, this spot might have been the place where they were manufactured. Their date is not coeval with the bowlder clay, but undoubtedly belong, to the last of this epoch.

The human bones found in the loess of the Rhine, near Colmar, were two fossilized fragments of the skull. They were found in undisturbed soil along with the fossil bones of the extinct species of mammoth, horse, gigantic deer, aurochs, and other mammalia. The fragment of the skull "showed a depressed forehead, strongly projecting superciliary arches, and a type, on the whole, approaching the so-called dolichocephalic, or long-headed form."[22] These remains date so near the end of the glacial as to almost enter the inter-glacial.

CHAPTER III.

GLACIAL EPOCH—CONTINUED.

Belgian Caverns.—The relics discovered by Dr. Schmerling, in the caves of Belgium, must be referred to the time of the retreat of the glaciers. The glaciers were still in existence, but their receding had freed immense tracts of land, and the space they now covered was small in proportion to their former extent. Whether it be considered or not, that vegetation greatly nourished and the great wild beasts were rapidly increasing, one thing must be noticed, and that is, floods must have succeeded or followed closely upon the retreat of the ice. Many remains, referred to the glacial epoch, may in reality, have occupied the time of the floods occurring just previous to the commencement of the inter-glacial.

The Belgian Caverns, near Liége, either belong exactly to the ice, or else to a period not far removed. Lyell considers the older monuments of the palæolithic period to be the rude implements found in ancient river gravel and in the mud and stalagmite caves.[23] Caves of this description are those reported on by Dr. Schmerling.

The caverns of the province of Liége were not the dens of wild beasts, but their contents had been swept in by the action of water. The bones of man "were of the same color, and in the same condition as to the amount of animal matter contained in them, as those of the accompanying animals, some of which, like the cave-bear, hyena, elephant, and rhinoceros, were extinct; others, like the wild-cat, beaver, wild boar, roe-deer, wolf, and hedgehog, still extant. The fossils were lighter than fresh bones, except such as had their pores filled with carbonate of lime, in which case they were often much heavier. The human remains of most frequent occurrence were teeth detached from the jaw, and the carpal, metacarpal, tarsal, metatarsal, and phalangial bones separated from the rest of the skeleton. The corresponding bones of the cave-bear, the most abundant of the accompanying mammalia, were also found in the Liége caverns more commonly than any others, and in the same scattered condition."[24] In some of these caves, rude flint implements, of a triangular form, were found dispersed through the cave mud. Dr. Schmerling did not pay much attention to these, as he was engrossed in his osteological inquiries. The human bones were met with at all depths, in the cave mud and gravel, both above and below those of the extinct mammalia.

The floors of these caverns were incrusted with stalagmite.[25] In the cavern at Chokier there occur "three distinct beds of stalagmite, and between each of them a mass of breccia, and mud mixed with quartz pebbles, and in the three deposits the bones of extinct quadrupeds."[26]

FOSSIL SKULL OF THE ENGIS CAVE NEAR LIEGE.

The fossil skull from the cavern of Engis was deposited at a depth of about five feet, under an osseous breccia containing a tusk of the rhinoceros, the teeth of the horse, and the remains of small animals. The breccia was about three and one-fourth feet wide, and rose to the height of about five feet above the floor of the cavern. In the earth which contained the skull there was found, surrounding it on all sides, the teeth of the rhinoceros, horse, hyena, and bear, and with no marks of the earth having been disturbed.

There was also found the cranium of a young person, in the floor of the cavern, besides an elephant's tooth. When first observed, the skull was entire, but fell to pieces when removed from its position. Besides these there were found a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, with the molar teeth worn down to the roots, indicating that of an old man; two vertebræ, a first and last dorsal; a clavicle of the left side, belonging to a young individual of great stature; two fragments of the radius, indicating a man of ordinary height; a fragment of an ulna: some metacarpal bones; six metatarsal, three phalanges of the hand and one of the foot.

Dr. Schmerling found in this cave a pointed bone implement incrusted with stalagmite and joined to a stone.

Of the Engis skull Professor Huxley has remarked, "As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirely absent; but the roof of the cranium, consisting of the frontal, parietal, and the greater part of the occipital bones, as far as the middle of the occipital foramen, is entire, or nearly so. The left temporal bone is wanting. Of the right temporal, the parts in the immediate neighborhood of the auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a considerable portion of the squamous element of the temporal, are well preserved."

A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling seems to have missed, has since been fitted on to the rest of the cranium by Dr. Spring, the accomplished anatomist of Liége.

"The skull is that of an adult, if not middle-aged man. The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. Its extreme breadth, which corresponds very nearly with the interval between the parietal protuberances, is not more than 5.4 inches. The proportion of the length to the breadth is therefore very nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn from the point at which the brow curves in towards the root of the nose, and which is called the 'glabella' (a, Fig. 8), to the occipital protuberance (d), and the distance to the highest point of the arch of the skull be measured perpendicularly from this line, it will be found to be 4.75 inches. Viewed from above, the forehead presents an evenly rounded curve, and passes into the contour of the sides and back of the skull, which describes a tolerably regular elliptical curve.

Fig. 7.
Professor T. H. Huxley.

Fig. 8.
Side View of the Human Skull found in the Cave of Engis.

a. Superciliary ridge and glabella.
b. Coronal suture.
d. The occipital protuberance.

"The front view shows that the roof of the skull was very regularly and elegantly arched in the transverse direction, and that the transverse diameter was a little less below the parietal protuberances, than above them. The forehead cannot be called narrow in relation to the rest of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating forehead; on the contrary, the antero-posterior contour of the skull is well arched, so that the distance along that contour, from the nasal depression to the occipital protuberance, measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc of the skull, measured from one auditory foramen to the other, across the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. The sagittal suture itself is 5.5 inches long. The superciliary prominences or brow-ridges (a) are well, but not excessively, developed, and are separated by a median depression. Their principal elevation is disposed so obliquely that I judge them to be due to large frontal sinuses. If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protuberance (a, d, Fig. 8) be made horizontal, no part of the occipital region projects more than one-tenth of an inch behind the posterior extremity of that line, and the upper edge of the auditory foramen is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel with this upon the outer surface of the skull."[27]

Some of the views expressed by Professor Huxley are at variance with those of other eminent scientists. Lubbock reports him as saying, "There is no mark of degradation about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, a fair average human skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage."[28] Mr. Busk agrees and partially disagrees with Professor Huxley, for he remarked to Lyell, "Although the forehead was somewhat narrow, it might nevertheless be matched by the skulls of individuals of European race."[29]

Dr. Schmerling, Buchner, and Vogt are arrayed against Huxley. The first says, "I hold it to be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged to a person of limited intellectual faculties, and we conclude thence that it belonged to a man of a low degree of civilization."[30] "From the narrowness of the frontal portion it belonged to an individual of small intellectual development."[31] Buchner says, "In its length and narrowness, the slight elevation of its forehead, the form of the widely separated orbits and the well developed supra-orbital arches, it resembles, especially when viewed from above, the celebrated Neanderthal skull, but in general is far superior to this in its structure."[32] Carl Vogt "regards it, with reference to the proportion of length to breadth, as one of the most ill-favored, animal-like and simian of skulls."[33]

The cause of this wide difference of opinion may arise from the failure to observe the fact that the older the formation in which a skull is found, the lower is the type. The ordinary observer, judging by the cast of the skull, would see nothing ape-like about it, and certainly would fail to see any indications of a philosopher.

NEANDERTHAL SKULL.

The Neanderthal skull was taken from a small cave or grotto in-the valley of the Düssel, near Düsseldorf, situated about seventy miles north-east of the region of the Liége caverns. The grotto is in a deep ravine sixty feet above the river, one hundred feet below the surface of the country, and at a distance of about ten feet from the Düssel River. It is fifteen feet deep from the entrance (f), which is seven or eight feet wide. Before the cavern had been injured, it opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front. The floor of the cave was covered four or five feet in thickness with a deposit of mud or loam, and containing some rounded fragments of chert. Two laborers, in removing this deposit, first noticed the skull, placed near the entrance, and further in met with the other bones. As the bones were not regarded as of any importance, at the time of their discovery, only the larger ones have been preserved.

Fig. 9.
Section of the Neanderthal Cave.

a. Cavern sixty feet above the Düssel, and one hundred feet below the surface of the country at c.
b. Loam covering the floor of the cave near the bottom of which the human skeleton was found.
c, a. Rent connecting the cave with the upper surface of the country.
d. Superficial sandy loam.
e. Devonian limestone.
f. Terrace, or ledge of rock.

Some discussion has arisen in respect to the geological time of these bones. There was no stalagmite overlying the mud or loam in which the skeleton was found, and no other bones met with save the tusk of a bear. There is no certain data given whereby its position may be known. Professor Huxley declares that the bones "indicate a very high antiquity."[34] Buchner is very positive in his statement, and declares that "the loam-deposit which partly fills the caves of the Neanderthal and the clefts and fissures of its limestone mountains, and in which both the Neanderthal bones and the fossil bones and teeth of animals were imbedded, is exactly the same that, in the caverns of the Neanderthal, covers the whole limestone mountain with a deposit from ten to twelve feet in thickness, and the diluvial origin of which is unmistakable."[35] Dr. Fuhlrott says, "The position and general arrangement of the locality in which they were found, place it, in my judgment, beyond doubt that the bones belong to the diluvium, and therefore to primitive times, i. e. they come down to us from a period of the past when our native country was still inhabited by various kinds of animals, especially mammoths and cave-bears, which have long since disappeared out of the series of living creatures."[36]

The diluvial or glacial origin of the Neanderthal skull is still further confirmed by the discoveries made, in the summer of 1865, in the Teufelskammer. This cavern is situated one hundred and thirty paces from the one in which the human bones were found, and on the same side of the river.. In the loam-deposit of this cave were found numerous fossil bones and teeth of the rhinoceros, cave-bear, cave-hyena, and other extinct animals. "A great part of these bones, especially those of the cave-bears, agree in color, weight, density, and the preservation of their microscopic structure, with the human bones found in the Feldhofner Cave (in which the Neanderthal man was found), and both are covered with the same dendrites, or tree-like markings."[37]

Before entering into a description and discussion of this remarkable skull, an enumeration of the other bones will be given. All the bones are characterized by their unusual thickness, and the great development of all the elevations and depressions for the attachment of muscles. The two thigh bones were in a perfect state, also the right humerus and radius; the upper third of the right ulna; the left ulna complete, though pathologically deformed, the coronoid process being so much enlarged by bony growth that flexure of the elbow beyond a right angle was impossible; the left humerus is much slenderer than the right, and the upper third is wanting. Its anterior fossa for the reception of the coronoid process is filled up with a bony growth, and, at the same time, the olecranon process is curved strongly downwards. The indications are that an injury sustained during life was the cause of this defect. There was an ilium, almost perfect; a fragment of the right scapula; the anterior extremity of a rib of the right side, and two hinder portions and one middle portion of ribs resembling more the ribs of a carnivorous animal than those of man. This abnormal condition has arisen from the powerful development of the thoracic muscles.

Fig. 10.
Side View of the Human Skull from Feldhofner Cave, in the Neanderthal, near Düsseldorf.

a. The superciliary ridge and glabella.
c. The apex of the lambdoidal suture.
b. The coronal suture.
d. The occipital protuberance.

The cranium is thus described by Professor Huxley. "It has an extreme length of 8 inches, while its breadth is only 5¾ inches, or in other words, its length is to its breadth as 100 is to 72. It is exceedingly depressed, measuring only about 3.4 inches from the glabello-occipital line to the vertex. The longitudinal arc, measured in the same way as in the Engis skull, is 12 inches; the transverse arc cannot be exactly ascertained, in consequence of the absence of the temporal bones, but was probably about the same, and certainly exceeded 10¼ inches. The horizontal circumference is 23 inches. But this great circumference arises largely from the vast development of the superciliary ridges, though the perimeter of the brain case itself is not small. The large superciliary ridges give the forehead a far more retreating appearance than its internal contour would bear out. To an anatomical eye the posterior part of the skull is even more striking than the anterior. The occipital protuberance occupies the extreme posterior end of the skull, when the glabello-occipital line is made horizontal, and so far from any part of the occipital region extending beyond it, this region of the skull slopes obliquely upward and forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is situated well upon the upper surface of the cranium. At the same time, notwithstanding the great length of the skull, the sagittal suture is remarkably short (4½ inches) and the squamosal suture is very straight."[38] ... "The cranium, in its present condition, contains about sixty-three English cubic inches of water. As the entire skull could hardly have held less than twelve cubic inches more, its minimum capacity may be estimated at seventy-five cubic inches.... It has certainly not undergone compression, and, in reply to the suggestion that the skull is that of an idiot, it may be urged that the onus probandi lies with those who adopt the hypothesis. Idiocy is compatible with very various forms and capacities of the cranium, but I know of none which present the least resemblance to the Neanderthal skull."[39]

Professor Huxley describes this skull to be the most ape-like of all the human skulls he has ever seen, and in its examination ape-like characters are met with in all its parts.[40] Buchner says that the face of the Neanderthal man must have presented a frightfully bestial and savage, or ape-like expression (see frontispiece).[41] Professor Schaaffhausen and Mr. Busk have stated that "this skull is the most brutal of all known human skulls, resembling those of the apes not only in the prodigious development of the superciliary prominences and the forward extension of the orbits, but still more in the depressed form of the brain-case, in the straightness of the squamosal suture, and in the complete retreat of the occiput forward and upward, from the superior occipital ridges."[42]

Professor Schaaffhausen and Dr. Buchner regarded this skull as a race-type, and Professor Huxley has said "that it truly forms only the extreme member of a series leading by slow degrees to the highest and best developed forms of human skulls."[43]

That this skull is a race-type is evident from the fact that it is not an isolated case. The fragment of the skull from the loess of the Rhine (Alsace), by its depressed forehead and strongly projecting superciliary arches, greatly resembles the Neanderthal skull. The skull from the calcareous tuff of Constatt, in its low, narrow forehead and strong superciliary arches, resembles the Neanderthal.[44] The cranium found in bone breccia, in Cochrane's Cave (Gibraltar), "resembles, in all essential particulars, including its great thickness, the far-famed Neanderthal skull. Its discovery adds immensely to the scientific value of the Neanderthal specimen, if only as showing that the latter does not represent, as many have hitherto supposed, a mere individual peculiarity, but that it may have been characteristic of a race extending from the Rhine to the Pillars of Hercules."[45] In speaking of the Neanderthal skull, Professor Schaaffhausen says, "It is worthy of notice that a similar, although smaller projection of the superciliary arches has generally been found in the skulls of savage races.... The remarkably small skull from the graves on the island of Moën, examined by Professor Eschricht; the two human skulls, described by Dr. Kutorga, from the government of Minsk (Russia), one of which, especially, shows a great resemblance to the Neanderthal skull; the human skeleton found near Plau, in Mecklenburg, in a very ancient grave, in a squatting position, ... the skull of which indicates a very distant period, when man stood on a very low grade of development;" and other similar discoveries near Mecklenburg, their skulls likewise presenting short, retreating foreheads and projecting eyebrows.[46]

Professor Huxley considers that the Borreby skulls, belonging to the stone age of Denmark, "show a great resemblance to the Neanderthal skull, a resemblance which is manifested in the depression of the cranium, the receding forehead, the contracted occiput and the prominent superciliary ridges."[47]

Human Skull of Arno.—The human skull, found by Professor Cocchi in the valley of the Arno, near Florence, in diluvial clay, together with various bones of extinct species of animals, is considered by Carl Vogt to be of like antiquity with the Engis and Neanderthal skulls.[48]

CHAPTER IV.

PRE-GLACIAL EPOCHS.

The age immediately preceding the glacial, and consequently the post-tertiary, is known as the pliocene epoch, the last of the tertiary.

The tertiary period began with the close of the cretaceous. A map of the early tertiary period would represent parts of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, the whole of Florida, the lower parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, the whole of Louisiana, and the adjoining territory on both sides of the Mississippi, as far as Cairo, as covered with water. Also a great sea extending through Nebraska and the western part of Dacotah, and taking a north-westerly course until it emptied into the Pacific. In Europe, the great basin of Paris (excepting a zone of chalk), the greater part of Spain and Italy, the whole of Belgium, Holland, Prussia, Switzerland, Hungary, Wallachia, and northern Russia, as one vast sheet of water. England and France were connected by a band of rocks.

About the middle of the tertiary, a tropical climate and tropical fauna and flora spread over the whole of Europe. Palms, cedars, laurels, and cinnamon trees flourished in the valleys of Switzerland, and more than thirty different species of oak adorned the forests of that time.

In Europe, in the eocene, there have been found thirty species of crocodiles; many species of snakes, one twenty feet long; a dozen species of birds; tapirs (Palæothere and Lophiodon), two species of hogs, some ruminants and rodents.

In the miocene, among Pachyderms may be mentioned the mastodon, elephant, dinothere (an elephantine animal), rhinoceros, hog, horse, tapir, and hippopotamus; among Carnivores, the machairodus, hyena, lion, and dog; among Ruminants, the camel, deer, and antelope. There were monkeys, and many other animals.

In the pliocene, besides those enumerated, are found the bear, hare, and other animals.

In the tertiary beds of America have been found mastodons, elephants, rhinoceroses, deer, camels, foxes, wolves, horses, whales, and other mammalia.

Owing to the great lapse of time it cannot be expected that many traces of man will be discovered in this early period.

Upon theoretical grounds Lyell thought it very probable that man lived in the pliocene; but in relation to miocene time, he says, "Had some 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."[49] Sir J. Lubbock, while admitting the existence of man in the pliocene, goes farther and says, "If man constitutes a separate family of mammalia, as he does in the opinion of the highest authorities, then, according to all palæontological analogies, he must have had representatives in miocene times. We need not, however, expect to find the proofs in Europe; our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom are confined to hot, almost to tropical climates, and it is in such countries that we are most likely to find the earliest traces of the human race."[50] Alfred R. Wallace out-distances any of his cotemporaries, for he says, "We are enabled to place the origin of man at a much more remote geological epoch than has yet been thought possible. He may even have lived in the miocene or eocene period, when not a single mammal was identical in form with any existing species."[51]

Some of the older and some of the recent discoveries of geologists have settled the question of tertiary man; and the "signs of his existence," in the "shape of implements of stone," as demanded by Lyell, have been furnished.

Man in the Pliocene.—It has already been intimated that the evidences of man are but few in this early epoch. The first example, in the following list, borders closely on the glacial, but far enough removed as to be referred to the pliocene.

In the construction of a canal between Stockholm and Gothenburg it was necessary to cut through one of those hills called osars, or erratic blocks, which were deposited by the drift-ice during the glacial epoch. Beneath an immense accumulation of osars, with shells and sand, there was discovered in the deepest layer of subsoil, at a depth of about sixty feet, a circular mass of stones, forming a hearth, in the middle of which there were wood-coals. No other hand than that of man could have performed the work.[52]

In the pliocene beds in the neighborhood of the town of Savonia in Liguria, M. A. Issel found several bones which presented all the physical signs of very high antiquity. Dr. Buchner is of the opinion that before these bones can be employed as satisfactory evidence they must have a more accurate test by scientific authorities.[53]

In the upper pliocene beds at St. Prest (France), M. Desnoyers found traces of human action on the bones of animals belonging to the tertiary. These fractures are analogous to those of human action observed on bones from the glacial period, and identical with those made by northern tribes of the present day, on the skulls of ruminants. The marked bones found were those of the Southern elephant (E. meridionalis), rhinoceros (R. leptorinus), hippopotamus major, several species of deer, and two of the ox. Carl Vogt states that this discovery is not only genuine, but also, the formation in which the bones were found is decidedly tertiary. It is further characterized by the presence of the southern elephant (E. meridionalis). As this elephant became extinct before the glacial age, the bones consequently precede the glacial, and the age of the cave-bear, the mammoth, and tichorrhine rhinoceros. The eminent French naturalist, Quatrefages, confirms the testimony of Desnoyers.[54]

The conclusions of Desnoyers are confirmed beyond a doubt by the more recent discoveries of Abbé Bourgeois. In the same tertiary strata of St. Prest, in which were found the marked or fractured bones, Bourgeois discovered worked flints, including flakes, awls, and scrapers.[55]

A human skull, belonging to the pliocene, was found by James Matson, at Altaville, in Calaveras county, California, at a depth of one hundred and thirty feet, under five beds of gravel separated by five layers of lava, associated with the bones of an extinct rhinoceros, camel, and horse. The base of the skull is imbedded in a mass of bone-breccia and small pebbles of volcanic rock. The shape of the skull resembles that of the Digger Indians, and is of remarkable thickness.[56]

Man in the Miocene.[57]—M. Bourgeois has found, in a stratum of miocene near Pontlevoy, numerous worked flints, and other flints which have been subjected to the action of heat. These works of man were associated with the remains of the acerotherium (an extinct species allied to the rhinoceros), and beneath five distinct beds, one of which contained the rolled bones of rhinoceros, mastodon, and dinotherium.[58]

M. Tardy found a flint-flake of undoubted workmanship in the miocene beds of Aurillac (Auvergne), together with the remains of dinotherium giganteum, and machaerodus latidens.[59]

M. Bourgeois reports that Abbé Delaunay had found near Pouance (Maine-et-Loire), fossil bones of a halitherium (an herbivorous cetacean of the miocene), with evident signs of having been operated upon by cutting instruments.[60]

In the miocene gravel beds of Colorado and Wyoming territories, chert-flakes, hammers, chisels, knives, and wrought shells have been found.[61]

Eocene.—As yet geologists have failed to discover any traces of man in the Eocene epoch.

CHAPTER V.

CONDITION OF MAN IN THE EARLIEST TIMES.

Of the first appearance of man on the globe there is no precise knowledge. His origin is a mystery. The place of his birth is generally supposed to be in Central Asia. There the geologist looks with a longing eye, and hopes ultimately to unravel, not only the hidden mystery of the birth-place of his race, but also, how or through what natural process he sprang into existence.