ABSTRACT
Dawson speaks of the nearly entire human skeleton described by Quatrefages from the Lower Pliocene beds of Castelnedolo, near Brescia, and only answers it with a sarcastic remark about the well developed skull of this ancient man. The evidence extends over a vast area both in space and time, it is derived from the work of the most competent living geologists, and it is absolutely consistent in its general tendency. The first thing which impresses us is the extremely fragmentary distribution of the Miocene and Pliocene beds. One more point demands consideration ere we complete this subject of what Man has witnessed of geological change. For, according to current theory almost all the mountains have been either wholly formed or at least completed within quite “recent” times: indeed many of the greatest mountain chains have been puckered up from the position of horizontal strata wholly since “Miocene times,” which for us means since Man was upon the globe.
