THE ADVENT OF MAN.
Hitherto we have met with no trace of man or of his works. Yet there
have been in our upward progress from the dawn of life mute prophecies
of his advent. Man is in his bodily frame a vertebrate animal and a
mammal; and when first the Amphibians were introduced in the PalA|ozoic,
the framework of manaEuro(TM)s body was already sketched out and its principles
settled. Those great reptilian lords, the biped Saurians of the
Mesozoic, already foreshadowed his erect posture, though their limbs may
have been more ornithic than mammalian. The gradual advance in the
brain-development of the Tertiary mammals presaged a coming time when
mind would obtain the mastery over claw and tooth and horn; and in the
Miocene ages there was already some hint of the precise style of
structure in which this new creative idea would be realised. Yet it
might have been impossible to imagine beforehand the vast changes which
this new idea would inaugurate. In the lower animals such intelligence
as they possess is so tied to the physical organisation that it
manifests itself as a mechanical unvarying instinct. Man bursts this
bond, and in doing so revolutionises the whole scheme of nature. Old
things are now put to new uses, the face of nature is changed, varied
arts are introduced, and thought enters into the domain of general and
abstract truth. Objects are arranged, classified, understood, and while
in some respects the whole creation is made to groan under the tyrannous
inventions of man, yet these are the inventions of imagination and
design. They are the triumph, not of brute force, but of will and
intelligence.
That man was not in all the earlier ages of the world, except in these
prophecies of his coming, geology assures us. That he is, we know. How
he came to be, is, independently of Divine revelation, an impenetrable
mysteryaEuro"one which it is doubtful if in all its bearings science will
ever be competent to solve. Yet there are legitimate scientific
questions of great interest relating to the time and manner of his
appearance, and to the condition of his earlier existence and subsequent
history, which belong to geology, and in which so great stores of
material have been accumulated that a treatise rather than a chapter
would be required for their discussion. We may endeavour to select a few
of the more important points.
One of the first questions meeting us is that which relates to the point
in geological time signalised by the advent of our species. In the
Eocene period our continents were being gradually raised out of the
ocean, and were still in great part under the waters, which several
times returned upon the land, and seemed ready again to engulf it. In
this period not only have we no traces of man, but all the higher
animals of that age are now extinct. In the later Eocene and Miocene the
extent of land became greater, but it was so disposed as to allow the
influx into the Arctic Sea of vast volumes of heated water from the
equatorial regions; and there may have been also astronomical causes at
work to increase this influx of warm water, and so to raise the
temperature of the Arctic regions still higher.[83] The middle period of
the Tertiary was undoubtedly a time very favourable to the wide
distribution of the higher forms of life both animal and vegetable. But
we cannot trace man or any of the contemporary mammals back to the
Miocene. In the Pliocene the continents had attained to their present
elevations, and climates were not dissimilar from those prevailing at
present; but still we have no certain indication of the presence of man;
and if other modern mammals extend back to this period their number is
very small. In this age also the greater part of the continents must
have been covered with a great thickness of soil and disintegrated rock
favourable to vegetation, and there seemed nothing to preclude the
introduction of man. But a new and at first sight most unfavourable
change was to intervene. Whether through internal changes affecting the
distribution of land and water, or through astronomical vicissitudes,
the northern hemisphere, and possibly the whole world, entered on an era
of refrigeration, the so-called aEurooeGlacial AgeaEuroŁ of the Post-Pliocene or
Pleistocene period. That in this period our continents as far south as
the latitude of 40A deg. were overwhelmed with ice or ice-laden seas is
rendered evident by the fact that the whole surface up to several
thousands of feet above the sea-level has been bared of its accumulated
_dA(C)bris_ and polished and grooved by ice, and laden with boulders and
other glacial deposits, while in many places at heights of even 1,000 or
1,200 feet these deposits contain sea-shells of species now living in
the colder parts of the ocean. These phenomena do not exist in the
tropical regions, except in the vicinity of high mountains, but they
recur in the southern hemisphere. It is still uncertain whether the
period of greatest cold in the two hemispheres was at the same time or
in successive ages. Geologically, however, they are approximately
contemporaneous, both occurring between the end of the Pliocene and the
modern period; but nevertheless they may not have coincided in absolute
date.
Very different views have been held as to the precise condition of the
continents in the Glacial Age, though all agree in the prevalence of
cold and the action of ice, and in the fact of a great submergence at
one or more stages of the period. My own conclusions, which I have
advocated elsewhere,[84] and which are based on extensive study of the
northern parts of America, where the deposits of this age are more
widely developed than elsewhere, are that there was one great
subsidence, leading to a condition in which the lower levels of the
continents were covered with ice-laden water and the higher regions were
occupied with permanent snow and glaciers. This submergence went on till
even high mountains 4,000 feet or more in elevation were under water.
Then there was a gradual though intermittent elevation, during which the
climate became ameliorated, and lastly there was a condition in which
the land of the northern hemisphere stood higher than at present, and
which immediately preceded the modern period. As these conditions have
great significance in relation to the appearance of man, I have
tabulated them for reference as they occur in Scandinavia, Great
Britain, and North America. The so-called aEurooeInterglacial PeriodsaEuroŁ of some
geologists are in reality local results of the stages of intermittent
elevation in which were deposited beds which in some cases, as in
Scotland, Sweden, and Eastern Canada, hold sea-shells, and in others, as
in the central areas of North America, contain remains of plants of
northern species.
We shall name, for convenience, the parts of this Pleistocene revolution
which include the great subsidence and glaciation, the _Glacial_ Age,
that extending from the re-elevation to the modern the _Post-glacial_.
The Glacial Age proved fatal to a large proportion of the land life of
the previous periods. According to Professor Boyd Dawkins, out of
fifty-three species known in Britain in the Post-glacial, only twelve
are survivors of the Pliocene; and probably the proportions would not be
greater in any part of the northern hemisphere. Some, however, did
survive, either by migrating southward or by being inhabitants of places
less severely affected than most by the general cold and submergence.
There was thus no absolute break in the chain of life effected by the
Glacial Age.
TABLE OF PLEISTOCENE DEPOSITS IN SCANDINAVIA, ENGLAND, AND AMERICA.
(Order descending.)
+---------------------+--------------------+--------------------------+
| SCANDINAVIA. | GREAT BRITAIN. | NORTH AMERICA. |
| (Torell.) | (Lyell, &c.) | |
+---------------------+--------------------+--------------------------+
| | | |
| Valley-clays and | Hoxne Deposits and | Terrace Gravels |
| Heath-sands of | Upper Terrace | and Loess |
| Sweden. (No | Gravels. | Deposits. |
| fossils.) | PalA|olithic | |
| | Implements. | |
| | | Placer Gravels of West. |
| Terrace-gravels of | Upper Glacial Beds.| |
| Norway and Sweden.| Bridlington Beds.| Do. Sand and Gravel, |
| (No fossils.) | Upper Boulder | Newer Boulder Drift. |
| | Beds. | |
| | | So-called Interglacial |
| Dryas-clay with | So-called | Beds, with Plants, &c. |
| Fossil plants of | "Interglacial" | |
| northern species. | Deposits. | Loess Deposits of |
| | | Mississippi. |
| | | |
| Uddevalla beds with | Clyde Beds and | Upper Leda Clay and |
| Boreal Marine | Marine Clays. | Champlain Clay, with |
| shells. | | Boreal Shells. |
| | | |
| | | White Silts of British |
| | | Columbia. |
| | | |
| | Mid-Glacial Sands. | Erie Clays and similar |
| | | Beds of West. |
| | | |
| Yoldia Clay and | | Lower Leda Clay, with |
| Sand. Arctic | | Arctic Shells. |
| Marine Shells. | | |
| | | Port Hudson Deposit of |
| | | Mississippi. |
| Yellow Stony Clay | | |
| and Sand, and | | "Syrtensian" Beds of |
| Gravel of Scania. | | New Brunswick. |
| | | |
| | | Orange Sand of |
| | | Mississippi. |
| | | |
| "Moraines de Fond," | Till, or Older | Boulder Clays, with |
| or Boulder Clay | Boulder Clay. | Local and some |
| proper. | | Travelled Boulders. |
| | | |
| | | Old Land Surfaces--Peat |
| Ancient Diluvial | Pebbly Beds and | under Boulder Clay, |
| Sand. | Weyburne Sands, | Local Gravels and |
| | Lignitic Forest | Sands. |
| | Beds. | |
| | | Pre-glacial Gravels of |
| | | British Columbia. |
+---------------------+--------------------+--------------------------+
In what part of this sequence did man appear? In answer to this, I think
it is now generally admitted that he is not certainly known earlier than
the Post-glacial period. Various supposed indications of his presence in
aEurooeInterglacialaEuroŁ Glacial, Pliocene, and even Miocene deposits have proved
on examination to be unreliable. America has recently put forth claims
to have been inhabited by man in the Pliocene, on the faith of remains
found in auriferous gravels in the West. But the facts that the
implements and bones found are modern in type, that the gravels were
deeply mined by the Indians, and that the objects found, as mortars for
dressing gravel, etc., are in many cases such as they would be likely to
leave in their excavations, have discredited these supposed discoveries.
Still more recently, chipped flints found in gravels in New Jersey, by
Abbott, have been supposed to carry back the Indians of the East coast
to the Glacial period. It is evident, however, from the description of
these deposits by the late Mr. Belt and by Professor Cook, director of
the Survey of New Jersey, that they are really Post-glacial, that their
age must be estimated by study of the local conditions, and that there
is no good ground for correlating them with the upper members of the
true Glacial drift to the northwards, with which they had been somewhat
rashly identified. Irrespective of the doubtful character of many if not
all of the so-called implements, the deposits in which they are found is
confessedly not a product of the ice of the Glacial period proper,
whether that was, as some maintain, a period of land glaciation as far
south as New Jersey or not. It belongs to a time of denudation by water,
aided perhaps by floating ice, and is not necessarily older than the
river gravels of the Somme, which, like it, contain boulders and imply
conditions of torrential action and climate which have long since passed
away. If, however, these implements are genuine, they would imply the
presence of PalA|ocosmic or Antediluvian man in America. This would in
itself be an important discovery.
For the present, therefore, man is geologically a Post-glacial species,
and there is nothing unreasonable in supposing that he dates no farther
back, since several animals his contemporaries are in the same case; and
by supposing him to have originated after the Glacial age we avoid the
difficulties attendant on his survival of that great revolution. The
only necessity for supposing an earlier appearance arises from the
requirements of the hypothesis of evolution. Those, however, who hold
this theory, may with Haeckel take refuge in that shadowy continent
supposed to have extended from Africa to Australia,[85] and to have
sheltered man in his transition from the ape to humanity, in the
Tertiary period. The name Lemuria is taken from the Lemurs, supposed
ancestors of the Apes, which still haunt the margin of the Indian Ocean;
but it may be taken also in its old Latin sense of ghosts of the evil
dead; and as we are not likely to obtain any more tangible evidence of
the old natives of Lemuria, perhaps we may hope that some spiritualist
may succeed in charming them from the vasty deep for our enlightenment.
Should this be so, it is to be hoped that no aEurooedrum ecclesiasticaEuroŁ will be
beaten to drive them away till they have revealed all they can tell.
It may be well to add that, in addition to the negative evidence, there
is at least one positive evidence of the recent origin of man which has
been well urged by Le Conte. It is this: animals have continued long in
geological time in the inverse ratio of their rank. Some Mesozoic
protozoa still survive. So do many early Tertiary mollusks. But the
mammals are of much less duration. No living species goes back farther
than the Pliocene. Few extend farther than the Glacial age. On the same
principle it is not to be expected that man, the highest of all animals,
should extend far back in geological time.
Accepting the Post-glacial age as that of the advent of man, it may be
interesting to ask what we know of the condition of our continents when
he appeared. In Western Asia, in Europe, except in its more northern
portions, and it would now seem also in America, man had been introduced
at a time closely following the emergence of the land from the Glacial
sea. At this time the land area of both continents was larger than it is
at present, and the character of the fauna shows that much of the
surface was occupied with great steppes or prairies, over which
migration would be easy; while there were probably connections by land
or chains of islands between the continents of the northern hemisphere.
The land animals of the continents were more numerous and of greater
stature than at present. Several species of elephants (Fig. 186) and a
rhinoceros roamed over the plains. The formidable _Elasmotherium_ (Fig.
187),[86] an animal allied to the rhinoceros, but more fleet and active,
and of immense size, inhabited Asia and Europe. Hippopotami, wild
horses, the gigantic Irish stag, several species of wild cattle, and
bisons of greater size than their successors, haunted the streams and
steppes. The cave bear, the cave lion, the spotted hyA|na, and possibly
the _Machairodus_, were among the beasts of prey even in the temperate
latitudes. The climate must have been a continental one, ranging through
considerable extremes; but the conditions favoured migration of animals
on the great scale, so as to avoid these extremes, and hence species of
types now comparatively restricted enjoyed a wide distribution.
[Illustration: FIG. 186.aEuro"_Elephas primigenius._ Post-glacial.]
To establish themselves in such a world, the primitive men must have
been no puny race, either in mind or body, and they must have been
sheltered in some Eden of plenty and comparative safety till, by
increase of numbers, invention of weapons and implements, and
domestication of useful animals, they became able to cope with the
monarchs of the waste. But this position once attained in the original
seats of the species, the wide continents presented great facilities for
their movements, and there were ample stores of food for wandering
tribes subsisting by the chase.
[Illustration: FIG. 187.aEuro"Tooth of _Elasmotherium_. Grinding surface,
natural size. Siberia. From _Nature_.]
With such views the skeletons of the most ancient known men[87] fully
accord. They indicate a people of great stature, of powerful muscular
development, especially in the lower limbs, of large brain, indicating
great capacity and resources (Fig. 188), but of coarse Turanian
features, like those of the tribes that now roam over the plains of
Northern Asia (Fig. 189). They used flint and bone implements, which
they manufactured with much skill (Figs. 190, 191). They were probably
clothed in dressed skins, ornamented with embroidery, in the manner of
the North American Indians. They used shells and carved bones as
ornaments. Recent discoveries at Soloutre, in France, render it probable
that some of the tribes had tamed the horse, and resided in fortified
villages. They buried their dead with offerings, indicating a belief in
immortality. These Post-glacial men are certainly known as yet only in
Europe and Western Asia; and we cannot therefore determine if they
represent the average man of the period. There were in Belgium and other
parts of Europe, men of smaller stature and of lower cranial type,
contemporary or nearly so with the higher race. There may have been
fruit-eating or agricultural peoples in the more genial and fertile
lands of the east and south. The conditions above sketched are, I think,
fairly deducible from the facts stated by Christy and Lartet, Dupont,
RiviA"re, Dawkins, and others, who have studied the remains of these
early men, the PalA|olithic men of some writers, or the men of the
Mammoth age, and whom I have elsewhere named PalA|ocosmic men, as a term
less objectionable than those founded on implements not confined to any
age, or animals which may have long antedated man. Recent discoveries in
the caves of Spy in Belgium,[88] taken in connection with the previous
discoveries of Schmerling and Dupont, seem to show the existence in that
country of men of the low-browed Neanderthal or Canstadt type (Fig. 189
third outline), perhaps locally preceding but perhaps contemporaneous
with, the larger and better developed men of the Cro-Magnon type (Fig.
189 first outline). These two types are, however, allied, and there are
intermediate forms, so that they are to be regarded as two races of
PalA|ocosmic men not more dissimilar than we find in cognate rude races
at present.
[Illustration: FIG. 188.aEuro"Engis Skull. Reduced.aEuro"After Lyell. The Skull
of one of the Men of the Mammoth age.]
[Illustration: FIG. 189.aEuro"Outlines of Three Prehistoric European Skulls
compared with an American Skull from Hochelaga.
Outer outline, Cro-Magnon Skull. Second outline, Engis Skull. Third
outline (dotted), Neanderthal Skull. Inner figure, Hochelagan Skull on a
smaller scale.]
They were succeeded in Western Europe by a smaller and less elevated
race, identical apparently with the modern Lapps and Basques, and in
whose time the mammoth and many large animals had disappeared, Europe
had become clad with dense forests, and the reindeer had extended his
range far to the south, while the land of our continents had become
narrowed to its present limits, or even less. The cause of these changes
must have been physical, and to some extent cataclysmal; and its
wide-spread and effectual character is shown by the fact that it
exterminated so many animals of both continents which had survived the
Glacial age. Similar testimony is borne by the occurrence of the
implements and remains of PalA|ocosmic men in gravels and in diluvial
clays in caverns, and by the changes of level and deep erosions of
valleys that are referable to the close of the PalA|ocosmic age. The most
probable agencies in this revolution were subsidences of the land,
accompanied with climatal changes; but the precise nature and extent of
these is still unknown; and the prevalent tendency on the part of
geologists to stretch the doctrine of uniformity, so valuable within
proper limits, to the absurd extreme of excluding all changes not
exemplified even in amount in the modern period, will probably for some
time prevent any adequate conception of them.
It would be premature to correlate what is yet known of the PalA|ocosmic
age with historical periods; but the tendency of the facts accumulated
is, I think, toward the identification of the PalA|ocosmic men with the
Antediluvians; and their Neocosmic successors, whether of the reindeer
age, of the Danish shell-mounds, or the Swiss lake habitations, with
Postdiluvian and still existing tribes.
[Illustration: FIG. 190.aEuro"Flint Implement found in KentaEuro(TM)s Cavern,
Torquay, under four feet of cave mud and one foot of stalagmite.aEuro"After
Pengelly.]
After what has been already said, it will be unnecessary to dwell upon
the characteristics of the first race of men known to us. They were rude
and uncivilised, in so far as outward appliances are concerned; but they
are confessedly altogether men, and in no respect akin to apes, and
their volume of brain is rather greater than that of the average
European of to-day; so that they must have had quite as much natural
sagacity and capacity for culture, and, like the modern and historic
Turanian nations, they were probably superior to the average European in
the instinct for art and construction. Thus if we suppose these men
derived from apes by any process of gradual change, we must look for
their brute ancestors, not in the Pliocene or Miocene, but in the Eocene
itself. This causes us to recur to the doctrine of critical periods,
when many species were introduced together, alternating with periods of
decay and extinction. Post-glacial man appears at the end of a time of
sifting and trial, a time in which a vast number of species succumbed to
great physical reverses. No very great number of species came in with
him, and in the early period of his history there was a decadence or
destruction either by the diluvial cataclysm or gradually. Out of
ninety-eight species of mammals contemporary with early man in Europe,
forty-one are wholly or locally extinct, and none have been introduced
except those brought by man himself. Thus man stands alone, the grand
product of his period and a lord of creation, for whom great preparatory
changes were made, and multitudes of lower animals swept away to make
room for him. According to our sacred Scriptures, this change is still
imperfect, and great additional ameliorations would have taken place but
for a moral catastrophe not within the domain of geologyaEuro"the fall of
man. If we identify the PalA|ocosmic men with the Antediluvians of the
same venerable record, the roving tribes whose remains are known to us
represent that part of the race of Cain of whom Jubal was the father,
the nomads dwelling in tents, as distinguished from the settled
agricultural peoples. In this case, also, the catastrophe which
destroyed these rude and lawless men was that which culminated in the
deluge of Noah, which may represent the extinction of the last great
body of this primitive race, whose arts, handed down to the physically
inferior men of Postdiluvian times, astonish us by their early
development in ChaldA|a and in Egypt.
[Illustration: FIG. 191.aEuro"Bone Harpoon (PalA|ocosmic), from PA(C)rigord
Cavern.]
If man is so recent geologically, he may still be very old historically;
and the question remains, Have we any facts bearing on the absolute
antiquity of man? For the properly historical aspect of this question,
I may refer to the excellent work of Canon Rawlinson on the _Origin of
Nations_,[89] which shows conclusively that the historic origin of all
the great nations of antiquity extends backward less than 4,400 years
from our time. Beyond this we have, however, the PalA|ocosmic or
Antediluvian men; and their extension backward seems limited
geologically only by the close of the Glacial period, while many hold
that the Genealogy in Genesis does not require us to limit very narrowly
their antiquity. The date of the Glacial period is, however, at present
very uncertain. On the one hand, some geologists, like Lyell, have
supposed it may be as far back as 200,000 years ago. Others, like Croll,
are contented with the more moderate estimate of 80,000 years. On the
other hand, the calculations of Andrews, based on the recession of the
American lakes, those of Winchell on the recession of the Falls of St.
Anthony, and the recent surveys of the recession of the Falls of
Niagara, reduce the time to from 7,000 to 10,000 years. It is impossible
in the present state of knowledge to settle these disputes; but one may
refer in the sequel to some of the evidences which have been adduced in
favour of great antiquity. Since the publication of the second edition
of this work Prof. Prestwich, in a paper read before the Geological
Society,[90] has brought forward other reasons which induce him to
conclude that the close of the Glacial epoch occurred aEurooefrom 8,000 to
10,000 years since.aEuroŁ It is true, he admits, on geological evidence still
in dispute, that man may have existed in Europe before that time, and he
also admits, on historical, not geological evidence, the existence of
aEurooeNeolithicaEuroŁ man in Asia, aEurooeat an earlier date than 4,000 B.C.aEuroŁ Still the
repudiation, by so good an authority, of the exaggerated antiquity which
it has been the fashion, since the rise of Darwinian evolution, to
assign to man, contrary to the geological evidence, is a satisfactory
indication of a return to more rational views; and when geologists get
rid of the fiction of a continental ice-sheet, still farther progress
in this direction may be expected.
We may, I think, at once take it for granted, that none of the Neocosmic
races date farther back than the origin of the great eastern nations.
There are certainly no geological evidences requiring a greater
antiquity, for in their time the land had attained to its present
configuration, and the changes which have occurred in the succession of
forests and the growth of peat are such as our experience in America
shows to be possibly quite modern. There is besides no doubt that these
people, from the Reindeer men of France and Belgium to the people of the
Swiss lakes, are modern races, whose descendants still live in Europe.
We can thus limit our inquiry to the PalA|ocosmic men; and with respect
to them we know only what may be gathered from a consideration of the
physical changes which have occurred since they lived.
In Europe a great number of considerations have been adduced as evidence
of their high antiquity; and these deserve careful attention, though I
think it will be found that they are all liable to serious objections or
great abatements on geological grounds.
(1) The occurrence of human remains with those of animals now extinct
affords no certain evidence of antiquity. Admitting that human remains
are found along with those of the mammoth in Europe, and with those of
the mastodon in America, the question remains, How late did these
species survive? In Europe we know that several large animals now
extinct existed up to comparatively modern times. This is the case with
the Irish deer (_Megaceros_), the urus, the aurochs, and the reindeer,
in temperate Europe. How long previously the mammoth or the hairy
rhinoceros disappeared we do not know, but need not suppose the time
very long.
(2) The accumulation of sediment or of stalagmite over human remains in
caverns is not necessarily indicative of very great antiquity. We know
that in favourable circumstances mud, sand, and gravel may be rapidly
deposited in caves by land floods or river inundations, and that
_dA(C)bris_ of various sorts accumulates in such places from decay of rock
and vegetable and animal agencies. The deposition of stalagmite is also
very variable in its rate; and the fact that it is being very slowly
deposited in any cave now does not prove that more rapid deposition may
not have taken place formerly. Dawkins and others have ascertained a
rate of a quarter of an inch per annum in some caverns; and this would
allow the stalagmite crust of KentaEuro(TM)s cave, for which an antiquity of
half a million of years has been claimed, to have been formed in a
thousand years.
[Illustration: FIG. 192.aEuro"Sketch of a Mammoth, carved on a portion of a
Tusk of the same Animal (Lartet).]
(3) The erosion of river valleys to great depths since the Glacial
period fails to establish the great antiquity of the caves left on their
sides or the high level gravels of their banks. Throughout the northern
hemisphere, the river valleys are of old date, and were merely filled
with loose detritus in the Glacial age. The sweeping out of this
_dA(C)bris_ would be a rapid process, more especially when changes of level
were occurring, and when the rainfall was greater than at present.
Besides, as Croll has well remarked, the actual configuration of our
continents, the amount of drift still remaining, and the imperfect
manner in which the river valleys have been cleared out, all testify to
the comparative recency of the Glacial period.[91] These considerations
would, indeed, materially reduce the antiquity which he claims on
astronomical grounds for the ice age.
(4) The growth of peat and the deposition of silt are very deceptive as
indications of great antiquity. For instance, accurate observations made
by a French engineer in the construction of docks at St. Nazaire,[92]
show that in 1,600 years the Loire had deposited over Gallo-Roman
remains six metres of mud. Relics of the Bronze age occur below these at
a depth indicating 500 years previously as their date; and the beginning
of the modern deposit of the Loire would, on the same evidence, be only
6,000 years ago. HilgardaEuro(TM)s observations on the delta of the Mississippi
in like manner tend greatly to reduce our estimates of the time occupied
in the deposit of the modern silt of that river. The peat deposit at
Abbeville, at the mouth of the Somme, has been supposed to have required
30,000 years for its formation. But this estimate was based upon the
present rate of growth; and, as Andrews has shown, the fact admitted by
Boucher de Perthes, that birch stems three feet high stand in this peat,
implies a much more rapid rate, which is also proved by the depth at
which Roman remains have been found. In like manner the Scandinavian
peats, to which a fabulous antiquity has been ascribed, have been proved
to be comparatively modern by the depths at which metallic works of art
are found in them.
(5) The paucity of remains of PalA|ocosmic men in Europe, with their wide
distribution, indicate that their sojourn was not long, or that the
population was very small and much scattered. Even in a few thousands of
years, an active and vigorous people, living in a country well supplied
with food, must have multiplied greatly, and must have left considerable
remains. On the theory that these men inhabited Europe even for 2,000
years, we have to suppose that the greater part of their remains have
been swept away, or remain under the waters, or buried out of sight in
diluvial sediments.
(6) Much importance has been attached to the early works and high
culture of Egypt and ChaldA|a, as evidence of vast time during which arts
were growing from a supposed rude stone age. But it must be observed
that no such period is known to antedate civilisation in the East, and
that if the early empires were established by survivors of the Deluge,
they must have brought with them the culture of Antediluvian times.
Farther, the notion of men emerging from a half-brutal state, and from
the use of the rudest implements, is purely conjectural and not
supported by facts. In America, where the semi-civilised agricultural
races are unquestionably the oldest, the rudest possible implements were
used by these partially civilised agricultural people along with
polished stone and metal; and Schliemann has shown that a rude stone age
succeeded the civilisation of Troy, and this at a time when PhA"nicia and
Egypt were at the height of their civilisation. Such facts, which might
fill volumes, show how little value is to be attached to supposed ages
of rough and polished stone.
(7) The difficulties attending the establishment of geological dates for
deposits like those containing the remains of men are very great. They
are altogether superficial and local, not wide-spread marine beds in
which a distinct order of superposition can be clearly traced. They are
not easily separated from the glacial beds below, or from those above
which have been modified by human agency, by land-floods, or by
landslips. Thus the application of geological criteria of age to them is
very difficult and uncertain. Evidence of this could easily be given, in
the many errors which have been promulgated, and which have had to be
retracted by their authors, or have been disproved by the observations
of others. For example, no country was at one time richer in supposed
evidences of the antiquity of man than Scandinavia; but Professor
Torell, the director of the Geological Survey of Sweden, has recently
made a careful re-examination of the facts, and has found that there is
no evidence whatever of the existence of man in Scandinavia before the
Neolithic or polished stone age. There are, however, evidences of
considerable changes of level since that time, and it would seem even
since the twelfth century of our era. The remarkable and seemingly
inexcusable errors of observation referred to in Professor TorellaEuro(TM)s
memoir, should enforce a caution on geologists as to the uncertainties
of such evidence. Lyell sifted the testimony bearing on this subject
with great care in the first edition of his _Antiquity of Man_. In later
editions he had to make large abatements, and now much of the evidence
in the latest edition would have to be withdrawn or otherwise applied.
From all these considerations the conclusion is obvious that while we
have no certain data for assigning a definite number of years to the
residence of man on the earth, we have no geological evidence for the
rash assertion often made that in comparison with historical periods the
date of the earliest races of men recedes into a dim, mysterious, and
measureless antiquity. On the basis of that Lyellian principle of the
application of modern causes to explain past changes, which is the
stable foundation of modern geology, we fail to erect any such edifice
as the indefinite antiquity of man, or to extend this comparatively
insignificant interval to an equality with the long A|ons of the
preceding Tertiary. The demand for such indefinite extension of the
history of man rests not on geological facts, but on the necessities of
hypotheses which, whatever their foundation, have no basis in the
discoveries of that science, and are not required to account for the
sequence which it discloses.