already shown, would probably either be carried to sea, or left in such a position as to allow of their recovery, at all events before they became disarticulated.
This is, however, a matter of but small importance, as there will be but little difficulty in conceding that an implement fashioned by human agency—and on this point there can be no question, unless we are to assume in ancient times the existence of some other now extinct race of intelligent beings—is as good an evidence of the existence of man, as would be any or all of his bones. Moreover, human bones are reported to have been discovered in these Quaternary beds, both in this country and in France. In England, I have already mentioned a human skull found near Bury St. Edmunds by Mr. Trigg, and the more doubtful skeleton found near Northfleet. I will not, however, insist upon either discovery being beyond all cavil.
Nor will I do more than allude to the too celebrated Moulin Quignon jaw, over which I have already pronounced a Requiescat in pace,[1] but the discovery of portions of the human skeleton by M. Bertrand, and M. Reboux, in the valley of the Seine, at Clichy[2] and elsewhere near Paris, in the same beds in which implements of true Palæolithic types have been found, seems better substantiated.
Whether the Pithecanthropus erectus of Dr. Dubois was human or simian, and what is the date of the beds in which his remains were found, and whether there is evidence of the existence of Miocene or Pliocene Man[3] in Burma, Portugal, France, Italy, or California, are questions which want of space compels me to leave on one side. I have, however, more than once elsewhere expressed my opinion on the subject of Tertiary Man.[4]
I need hardly again repeat that according to my view it is not in Britain, but in some part of the world more favoured by climate that the cradle of the human race is to be sought. And yet the antiquity of Man in Britain seems to extend far beyond any of our ordinary methods of computation. In attempting to estimate it, however vaguely, I must at the outset observe that with our present amount of knowledge, it is hopeless to expect that it can
- ↑ Athenæum, 1863, July 4.
- ↑ Hamy, "Paléontologie humaine," p. 210, et seqq. Bull. Soc. d'Artthrop. de Paris, 2nd S., vol. iii. p. 331. Belgrand, "Bassin de la Seine," pl. xlviii. and xlix.
- ↑ Rec. Geol. Sur. of India, vol. xxvii., 1894, p. 101. Geol. Mag., Dec. 4, vol. i., 1894, p. 525. Nat. Science, vol. v. p. 345, vol. x. p. 233.
- ↑ Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. i. p. 145. Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1890, p. 963. Nature, vol. xlii. p. 50.
