The Archaeological Journal.
DECEMBER, 1850.
ON THE REMAINS OF MAN, AND WORKS OF ART IMBEDDED IN ROCKS AND STRATA,
AS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE CONNEXION BETWEEN ARCHÆOLOGY AND GEOLOGY.
BY GIDEON ALGERNON MANTELL, ESQ., LL.D.,F.R.S.,
Vice-President of the Sussex Archæological Society, &c.
(Read at the Oxford Meeting, June 21, 1850.)
The beautiful, though quaintly expressed, idea of Sir Thomas Browne, that "Time conferreth a dignity upon the most trifling thing that resisteth his power" is suggestive of the connexion existing between Archæology and Geology; for as the antiquary, from a fragment of pottery, or a mutilated statue, or a defaced coin,—objects intrinsically valueless, but hallowed by the lapse of ages,—is enabled to determine the degree of civilization attained by a people whose origin and early history are lost in remote antiquity; so the geologist, from the examination of a pebble, or a bone, or a shell, may ascertain the condition of our planet, and the nature of its inhabitants, in periods long antecedent to all human history or tradition. And as the archæologist is often perplexed in his endeavours to decypher an ancient manuscript, from the original characters having been partially obliterated by later superscriptions; in like manner the geologist is frequently embarrassed while attempting to interpret the natural records of the physical history of the globe, from the obscurity occasioned by the successive mutations which the surface of the earth has undergone.
The investigation of the past is alike the object of both; but the antiquary limits his inquiries to the remains of man and his works, for the purpose of tracing the development of the human mind, in the various phases of society, from
