{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40121/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40121","id":"gutenberg_40121","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40121","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Science - Earth/Agricultural/Farming","Deluge","Prehistoric peoples"],"text":"Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustrations.\n      See 40121-h.htm or 40121-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/40121/pg40121-images.html)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40121/40121-h.zip)\n\n\n      Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      http://archive.org/details/meetingplaceofge00daws\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\n      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\n      Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face italics\n      (=bold italics=).\n\n      To enhance readability, small-capital text was left as\n      mixed-case.\n\n\n\nTHE MEETING-PLACE OF GEOLOGY AND HISTORY\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nSir J. William Dawson, LL.D., F.G.S.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"_The name of Sir William Dawson on a title page is a guarantee of two\nthings: one, that the book is orthodox and thoroughly evangelical; and\nthe other, that the matter of it is first-class, according to the\nhighest scientific standard._\"\n\n                                    --The Illustrated Christian Weekly.\n\n\n  =The Meeting-Place of Geology and History.= Illustrated. 12mo,\n    cloth                                                        $1.25\n\n     Sir William Dawson's aim in this volume is aptly described by the\n     title. It is to fix with that measure of definiteness which the\n     best and latest research permits the period when human life began\n     on the earth, and to discuss from the geologic standpoint the many\n     questions of interest connected with this event. He shows in how\n     many different ways science confirms the teaching of Scripture in\n     this department of knowledge.\n\n\n   =Modern Ideas of Evolution as related to Revelation and Science.=\n    _Sixth Edition, Revised and Enlarged._ 12mo, cloth            1.50\n\n     Carefully and thoroughly revised in the light of the criticism,\n     favorable and adverse, which the preceding five editions have\n     received.\n\n     \"Dr. Dawson is himself a man of eminent judicial temper, a widely\n     read scholar, and a close, profound thinker, which makes the blow\n     he deals the Evolution hypothesis all the heavier. We commend it to\n     our readers as one of the most thorough and searching books on the\n     subject yet published.\"--_The Christian at Work._\n\n\n  =The Chain of Life in Geological Time.= A Sketch of the Origin and\n    Succession of Animals and Plants. Illustrated. _Third and Revised\n    Edition._ 12mo, cloth                                         2.00\n\n     \"The judicial style of the writer in argument is enlivened by his\n     ability to render science most attractive and popular. He holds to\n     the orthodox view of the ordered plan of the universe, and yet\n     considers without prejudice the alluring ideas prevalent in modern\n     scientific circles.\"--_The Christian Advocate_ (_N.Y._)\n\n\n  =Egypt and Syria.= Their Physical Features in Relation to Bible\n    History. _Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged._ With many\n    Illustrations. \"_By-Paths of Bible Knowledge_,\" _Vol. VI._ 12mo,\n    cloth                                                         1.20\n\n     \"This is one of the most interesting of the series to which it\n     belongs. It is the result of personal observation, and the work of\n     a practised geological observer.\"--_The British Quarterly Review._\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\nTHE MEETING-PLACE OF GEOLOGY AND HISTORY\n\nby\n\nSIR J. WILLIAM DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S.\n\nAuthor of\n\"The Earth and Man,\" \"Modern Ideas of Evolution,\" \"The Chain of Life in\nGeological Time,\" etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nFleming H. Revell Company\nNew York \u00b7 Chicago \u00b7 Toronto\nThe Religious Tract Society, London\n\nCopyright, 1894\nFleming H. Revell Company\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe object of this little book is to give a clear and accurate statement\nof facts bearing on the character of the debatable ground intervening\nbetween the later part of the geological record and the beginnings of\nsacred and secular history.\n\nThe subject is one as yet full of difficulty; but the materials for its\ntreatment have been rapidly accumulating, and it is hoped that it may\nprove possible to render it more interesting and intelligible than\nheretofore.\n\nJ. W. D.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n     CHAPTER                                                      PAGE\n\n     I. General Nature of the Subject                               11\n\n    II. The World Before Man                                        18\n\n   III. The Earliest Traces of Man                                  27\n\n    IV. The Palanthropic Age                                        40\n\n     V. Subdivisions and Conditions of the Palanthropic Age         69\n\n    VI. End of the Palanthropic Age                                 85\n\n   VII. The Early Neanthropic Age                                   94\n\n  VIII. The Palanthropic Age in the Light of History               106\n\n    IX. The Deluge of Noah                                         121\n\n     X. Special Questions Respecting the Deluge                    151\n\n    XI. The Prehistoric and Historic in the East                   164\n\n   XII. The Neanthropic Dispersion                                 183\n\n  XIII. Summary of Results                                         210\n\n        Index                                                      219\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                                                  PAGE\n\n  Section at Trenton, on the Delaware, showing The Relation of\n  the Stone Implements to the Glacial (?) Gravels (after Holmes)    32\n\n  Chipped Quartzites, Modern American (after Holmes)                33\n\n  Flint Hache of the Ancient or Chellean Type, Aurillac (after\n  Carthaillac)                                                      41\n\n  Cave of Goyet, Belgium (Section after Dupont) 47\n\n  Lance Head formed of a Flint Flake (Cave of Moustier). The Flat\n  Face shows a Bulb of Percussion (after Falsan)                    49\n\n  Outline of the Skull of the 'Old Man of Cro-magnon' (after\n  Christy and Lartet)                                               54\n\n  The First Skeleton found in the Mentone Caves (after Rivi\u00e8re)     57\n\n  Handle of a Piercer, or Bodkin, in Bone, from Laugerie Basse,\n  in Form of a Deer                                                 59\n\n  Flint Flake Knife, found in the Hand of the 'Giant' Skeleton of\n  Mentone (after Evans)                                             59\n\n  Neanderthal Skull--two Outlines: the Outer giving the more\n  Correct Form (from _Science_)                                     60\n\n  Skull of Canstadt Type found at Spy, Belgium, by Fraipont and\n  Lohest                                                            61\n\n  Outline of Mammoth, Carved on a Plate of Ivory, from the Cave\n  of La Madeleine                                                   68\n\n  Tooth of Cave Bear, with Engraving of a Seal, from a Collar\n  found at Sordes, Pyrenees (after Carthaillac)                     71\n\n  The Skeleton of Laugerie Basse, Dordogne, showing the Position\n  of the Perforated Shells on the Limbs and Forehead (after\n  Carthaillac)                                                      79\n\n  Skull from Truch\u00e8re, showing a peculiar Palanthropic Type allied\n  to Neanthropic Races (after Quatrefages)                          82\n\n  Flint Flakes of two Types, from Palanthropic and Neanthropic\n  Caves in the Lebanon                                              97\n\n  Restoration of the Sepulchral Cave of Frontal, Belgium (after\n  Dupont)                                                           99\n\n  Cromlech at Fontanaccia, Corsica (after De Mortillet)            105\n\n  Map showing the Geographical and Geological Relations of the\n  Site of Eden, as described in Genesis                            117\n\n  Map showing Lines of Postdiluvian Migrations from Shinar, as in\n  Genesis x.                                                       185\n\n  Head illustrating the most Ancient Type of Cushite Turanian,\n  from Tel-loh (after de Sarzec). The cap is perhaps an imitation\n  of the antediluvian shell-caps, like that of the 'Man of\n  Mentone'                                                         191\n\n\n\n\nTHE MEETING-PLACE\n\nOF\n\nGEOLOGY AND HISTORY\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nGENERAL NATURE OF THE SUBJECT\n\n\nThe science of the earth and the history of man, though cultivated by\nvery different classes of specialists and in very different ways, must\nhave their meeting-place. They must indeed not only meet, but overlap\nand run abreast of each other throughout nearly the whole time occupied\nby the existence of man on the earth. The geologist, from his point of\nview, studies all the stratified crust of the earth, down to the mud\ndeposited by last year's river inundations. The historian, aided by the\narch\u00e6ologist, has written and monumental evidence carrying him back to\nthe time of the earliest known men, many thousands of years ago.\nThroughout all this interval the two records must have run more or less\nparallel to each other, and must be in contact along the whole line.\n\nThe geologist, ascending from the oldest and lowest portions of the\nearth's crust, and dealing for millions of years with physical forces\nand the instinctive powers of animals alone, at length as he approaches\nthe surface finds himself in contact with an entirely new agency, the\nfree-will and conscious action of man. It is true that at first the\neffects of these are small, and the time in which they have been active\nis insignificant in comparison with that occupied by previous geological\nages; but they introduce new questions which constantly grow in\nimportance, down to those later times in which human agency has so\nprofoundly affected the surface of the earth and its living inhabitants.\nFinally, the geologist is obliged to have recourse to human observation\nand testimony for his information respecting those modern causes to\nwhich he has to appeal for the explanation of former changes, and has to\nadduce effects produced by human agency in illustration of, or in\ncontrast with, mutations in the pre-human periods.\n\nThe historian, on the other hand, finds, as he passes backward into\nearlier ages, documentary evidence failing him, and much of what he can\nobtain becoming mythical, vague or uncertain, or difficult of\nexplanation by modern analogies, until at length he is fain to have\nrecourse to the pick-axe and spade, and to endeavour to disinter from\nthe earth the scanty relics of primeval man, much as the geologist\nsearches in the bedded rocks for the fossils which they contain. He has\neven learned to use for these earliest ages the term prehistoric, and so\npractically to transfer them to the domain of the arch\u00e6ologist and\ngeologist.\n\nIt is evident, therefore, that if we seek for the meeting-place of\ngeology and history, we shall find not a mere point or line of contact,\nbut a series of such points, and even a complicated splicing together of\ndifferent threads of investigation, which it may be difficult to\ndisentangle, and which the geological specialist alone, or the\nhistorical specialist alone, may be unable fully to understand. The\nobject of this little volume will be to unravel as many as possible of\nthese threads of contact, and to make their value and meaning plain to\nthe general reader, so that he may not, on the one hand, blindly follow\nmere assertions and speculations, or, on the other, fail to appreciate\nascertained and weighty facts relating to this great and important\nmatter of human origins.\n\nThis is the more necessary since, even in works of some pretension,\nthere are tendencies on the one hand to overlook geological evidence in\nfavour of written records, or even of conjectural hypotheses, and on the\nother to reject all early historical testimony or tradition as\nvalueless. We shall find that neither of these extremes is conducive to\naccurate conclusions. Researches of a geologico-historical character\nnecessarily also bring us in view of the early history of our sacred\nbooks. This may be to some extent an evil, as inviting the excitement of\nreligious controversy; but on the other hand the fact that the early\nhistory incorporated in the Bible goes back to the introduction of man,\nand connects this with the completion of the physical and organic\npreparations for his advent, has many and important uses. It would seem\nindeed that it is a great advantage to our Christian civilisation that\nour sacred books begin with a history of creation, giving an idea of\norder and progress in the creative work. Whether we regard the days of\ncreation as literal days or days of vision of a seer, or whether we hold\nthem to be days of God and His working, suitable to the Eternal One and\nHis mighty plan, and bearing the same relation to Him that ordinary\nworking days bear to us, we cannot escape the idea of an orderly work in\ntime. This, while it delivers the Bible reader from the extravagant\nmyths current among heathen peoples, ancient and modern, predisposes him\nto expect that something may be learned from nature as to its beginning\nand progress. In like manner the short statements in Genesis respecting\nthe early history of man have awakened curiosity as to human origins,\nand have led us to search for further details derivable from ancient\nmonuments. The ordinary Christian who believes his Bible is thus so far\non his way toward a rational geology and arch\u00e6ology, and cannot say with\ntruth that he is absolutely ignorant of the pre-human history of the\nearth. His notions, it is true, may be imperfect, either by reason of\nthe brevity of the record to which he trusts, or of his own imperfect\nknowledge of its contents, but they give to historical and arch\u00e6ological\ninquiry an interest and importance which they could not otherwise\npossess.[1]\n\n[1] It is an interesting fact that the pecuniary means, the skill and\nlabour expended in research in the more ancient historic regions, have\nto so large an extent been those of Christians interested in the Bible\nhistory. Yet some _litt\u00e9rateurs_, who have contributed nothing to these\nresults, attempt to distort and falsify them in the interest of an\nunhistorical and unscientific criticism, and even to taunt the Bible as\nadverse to arch\u00e6ological inquiry.\n\nThe earth has indeed, especially in our own time, and under the impulse\nof Christian civilisation, made wonderful revelations as to its early\nhistory, to which we do well to take heed, as antidotes to some of the\nspeculations which are palmed upon a credulous world as established\ntruths. We have now very complete data for tracing the earth from its\noriginal formless or chaotic state through a number of formative and\npreparatory stages up to its modern condition; but perhaps the parts of\nits history least clearly known, especially to general readers, are\nthose that relate to the beginning and the end of the creative work. The\nearlier stages are those most different from our experience and whose\nmonuments are most obscure. The later stages on the other hand have left\nfewer monuments, and these have been complicated with modern changes\nunder human influence. Besides this, it is always difficult to piece\ntogether the deductions from merely monumental evidence and the\nstatements of written or traditional history. There would seem, however,\nto be now in our possession sufficient facts to link the human period to\nthose which preceded it, and thereby to sweep away a large amount of\nmisconception and misrepresentation in one department at least of the\nrelations of natural science with history.\n\nI have called the subject with which we are to deal the meeting-place of\ntwo sciences. In reality, however, it might be embraced under the name\nanthropology, the science of man, which covers both his old prehistoric\nages as revealed by geology and arch\u00e6ology, and the more modern world\nwhich is still present, or of which we have written records. The main\npoint to be observed is that it is necessary to place distinctly before\nour minds the fact that we are studying a period in which, on the one\nhand, we have to observe the precautions necessary in geological\ninvestigation, and on the other to examine the evidence of history and\ntradition. A failure either on the one side or the other may lead to the\ngravest errors.\n\nIn studying the subjects thus indicated it will be necessary first to\nnotice shortly the history of the earth before the human period, and its\ncondition at the time of man's introduction. We may then inquire as to\nthe earliest known remains of man preserved in the crust of the earth,\nand trace his progress through the earlier part of the anthropic or\nhuman period, in so far as it is revealed to us by the relics of man\nand his works preserved in the earth. We shall then be in a position to\ninquire as to the form in which the same chain of events is presented to\nus by history and tradition, and to discover the leading points in which\nthe two records agree or appear to differ.\n\nIt may be necessary here to define a few terms. The two latest of the\ngreat geological periods may be termed respectively the _pleistocene_\nand the modern, or _anthropic_, the latter being the human period or age\nof man. The pleistocene includes what has been called the glacial age, a\nperiod of exceptional cold and of much subsidence and elevation of the\nland, in the northern hemisphere at least. The modern, or anthropic, is\nfor our present purpose divisible into two sections--the early modern,\nor _palanthropic_, sometimes called quaternary, or post-glacial, and\nwhich may coincide with the antediluvian period of human history; and\nthe _neanthropic_, extending onward to the present time.[2]\n\n[2] The terms 'Pal\u00e6olithic' and 'Neolithic' have been used for the men\nof the Palanthropic and Neanthropic ages; but these are objectionable,\nas implying that these ages can be best distinguished by the use of\ncertain stone implements, which is not the fact. I have preferred,\ntherefore, to call the earlier races of men _pal\u00e6ocosmic_, and the later\n_neocosmic_, where it may be necessary to refer to them _as races_;\nwhile the _periods_ to which they belong are respectively the\n_Palanthropic_ and _Neanthropic_. By the use of these terms all\nambiguity will be avoided.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE WORLD BEFORE MAN\n\n\nMan is of recent introduction on the earth. For millions of years the\nslow process of world-making had been going on, with reference to\nphysical structure and to the lower grades of living creatures. Only\nwithin a few thousand years does our globe seem to have been fitted for\nits highest tenant. The evidence of this is to be found in any text-book\nof geology. I propose here merely to present the history of the earth in\na series of word-pictures, introductory to our special subject.\n\nOur first picture may be that of a nebula, vast and vaporous, containing\nthe mixed and unconsolidated materials of the sun and planets--a void\nand desolate mass, slowly aggregating itself under the influence of\ngravitation.\n\nOur next may be that of an incandescent globe, molten and glowing, and\nsurrounded by a vast vaporous envelope, but tending by degrees to a\ncondition in which it shall have a solid crust, on which the greater\npart of the watery vapour suspended in its atmosphere is to be condensed\ninto a heated ocean.\n\nOur third picture may represent the world of what geologists call the\narch\u00e6an, or eozoic period, when the crust had been furrowed up into\nridges of land, and corresponding but wider depressions occupied by the\nsea. Into the latter the rains falling on the land are carrying sediment\nderived from the wasting rocks, though the waters are still warm and the\nthinner parts of the crust are still welling out rocky material, either\nmolten or dissolved in heated water. In this period there were probably\nlow forms of animal life in the waters and plants on the land, though we\nknow little of their exact nature.\n\nA fourth picture may represent that great and long-continued pal\u00e6ozoic\nperiod in which the waters swarmed with many forms of life, when fishes\nwere introduced into the sea, and when the land became covered with\ndense forests of plants allied to the modern club-mosses, ferns,\nmares'-tails and pines; while insects, scorpions and snails, and some\nof the humbler forms of reptiles, found place on the land.\n\nReturning after an interval, we should see a fifth picture, that of the\nmesozoic world. This was the age of reptiles, when animals of that class\nattained their highest and most gigantic forms, and occupied in the sea,\non the land, and in the air the places now held by the mammals and the\nbirds; while the continents were covered with a flora distinct alike\nfrom that of the previous and succeeding periods, replaced, however, as\ntime went on by forests very like those of the modern world. In this age\nthe earliest mammals or ordinary quadrupeds were introduced, few at\nfirst, small and of low rank in their class. Birds also made their\nappearance, and toward the close of the period fishes of modern types\nswarmed for the first time in the sea.\n\nLastly, we might see in the cenozoic, or tertiary age, the newest of\nall, quadrupeds dominant on the land and modern types of animal life in\nthe sea. In this period our continents finally assumed their present\nforms. Toward its close and after many vicissitudes of geography and\nclimate, and several successive dynasties of mammalian life, man and the\nland animals now his contemporaries occupied the world, and thus the\ncenozoic passes into the _anthropic_, or modern period, called by some,\nbut without good reason, 'quaternary,' since it is in all respects a\nproper continuation of the tertiary, or cenozoic.[3]\n\n[3] It will be seen that our six pictures are in some degree parallel\nwith the 'days' of creation. This is not an intentional reconciliation.\nIt merely expresses the fact of the case, whatever its significance.\n\nThis last age of the world is so intimately connected with man that it\nwill be necessary to consider it more in detail. More particularly we\nmay endeavour to answer, if we can, the questions of order and time\ninvolved in man's late appearance.\n\nNo geologist would expect to find any remains of man or his works in the\nperiods represented by our five earlier pictures, because in these\nperiods the physical conditions necessary to man and the animals nearest\nto him in structure do not appear to have existed, and their places in\nnature were occupied by lower types.\n\nNor for similar reasons would we expect to meet with man in the earlier\npart of that last, or cenozoic, period in which we still live; and in\npoint of fact it is only in superficial deposits of the later part of\nthis last great period of the earth's history that we actually meet with\nevidence of the existence of the human species.\n\nIf there is based on this fact a question as to the actual date of man's\nfirst appearance, the physical considerations indicate about twenty\nmillions of years for the whole duration of the earth. Setting apart,\nsay, a fourth of this time for the early pre-geologic condition of the\nworld, the remainder may be roughly estimated as five millions for the\narch\u00e6an, or eozoic, six for the pal\u00e6ozoic, three for the mesozoic, and\none for the cenozoic.[4] Of the last, the later part, in which there is\na possibility of the existence of man, will be limited to less than a\nquarter of a million; and within this the certainly known remains of\nman, whether attributed as by some to the latest inter-*glacial period,\nor to the post-glacial--a mere question of terms, and not of\nfacts--cannot be older, according to the best geological estimates, than\nfrom seven thousand to ten thousand years. This, according to our\npresent knowledge, is the maximum date of the oldest traces of man, and\nprobably these are nearer in age to the smaller than to the larger\nnumber.\n\n[4] The absolute length of these periods is, of course, a matter of\nestimation; but the _relative_ lengths of the different ages may be\nregarded as a fair approximation, based on facts.\n\nIf the reader will take the trouble to draw on paper a scale of twenty\ninches, each of these will represent a million of years of the earth's\nhistory, and the known duration of the human period may be indicated by\na thickish line at one end of the scale. We may thus represent to the\neye the recency of man's appearance, so far as at present known to\nscience.\n\nIt may be said that all this is mere assertion. It fairly represents,\nhowever, the conclusions reached on the latest geological evidence,\nthough this evidence would demand for its full detail a larger space\nthan the whole of this little volume. References are given below to\nworks in which this evidence will be found.[5]\n\n[5] Lyell's _Students' Manual_; Dana's _Manual_; Prestwich's _Geology_;\n_The Story of the Earth_, by the author.\n\nIt may also be objected that if, as held by some evolutionists, man was\nslowly developed from lower animals, and if his earliest known remains\nare still human in their characters, he must have had a vastly longer\nhistory covering the periods of his gradual change from, say, ape-like\nforms. This is admitted; but then we have as yet no good evidence that\nman was so developed, and no remains of intermediate forms are yet known\nto science. Even should some animal, either recent or fossil, be\ndiscovered intermediate in structure between man and the highest apes,\nwe should still require proof that it was the ancestor of man, by the\noccurrence of connecting forms, or otherwise. As the facts now stand,\nthe earliest known remains of man are _still human_, and tell us nothing\nas to previous stages of development.\n\nWe must now glance a little more particularly at what may be termed the\nmore immediate antecedents of man. The latest great period of the\nearth's geological history (the cenozoic) was ingeniously subdivided by\nLyell, on the ground of the percentages of extinct and surviving species\nof marine shells contained in its several beds. According to this\nmethod, which, with some modifications in detail, is still accepted, the\neocene age, or that of the dawn of the recent, includes those formations\nin which the percentage of modern or still living species of marine\nanimals does not exceed three and a half, all the other species found\nbeing extinct. The miocene (less recent) includes beds in which the\npercentage of living species does not exceed thirty-five. The pliocene\n(more recent) includes beds in which the living forms of marine life\nexceed thirty-five per cent, but there is still a considerable\nproportion of extinct species. Newer than this we have the pleistocene\n(most recent), in which there are scarcely as many extinct species as\nthere are of recent in the eocene. Lastly, the modern, of course,\nincludes only the living species of the modern seas. Other geologists,\nnotably Dawkins and Gandry, have arrived at similar results from a\nconsideration of the vertebrate animals of the land. In the eocene we\nfind numerous remains of mammals, or ordinary land quadrupeds, but all\nare extinct, and nearly all belong to extinct genera. In the miocene\nthere are many living genera, but no species that survive to the present\ntime. The pliocene begins to show a few living species, and these are\ndominant in the succeeding pleistocene.\n\nThese several stages of the cenozoic were also characterised by great\nvicissitudes of geography and climate. In the early and middle portions\nof the eocene, much of the land of the northern hemisphere was under the\nsea or in the state of swamps and marshes, and there seems to have been\na very mild and equable climate, insomuch that plants now limited to\nwarm temperate regions could flourish in Greenland. It is further to be\nobserved that regions such as Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt, which are\nknown to us historically as among the earliest abodes of man, were at\nthis time under the ocean, as were also rocks that now appear at great\nelevations in the highest mountains of Europe and Asia. For example, the\nlimestones through which the Nile has cut its valley are marine beds of\neocene age, and beds of the same period holding marine remains occur at\nan elevation of 16,000 feet in the Himalayan region.\n\nIn the miocene the amount of land was somewhat greater, though large\nareas of the continents were still under the sea, and the climate was\nstill mild, but for reasons to be stated in the sequel it is not likely\nthat man inhabited the warm continents of this age. The pliocene\ninaugurates what has been termed a continental period, when the land of\nthe northern hemisphere was higher and more extensive than at present.\nIt was also a time of great physical change, when much erosion of\nvalleys and sculpturing of the surface of the land occurred, and when\nextensive earth movements and ejections of igneous rock increased the\nirregularity of the surface and gave greater variety and beauty to the\nland. The pliocene was altogether a most important period for giving the\nfinishing touches of physical geography, and in it several modern\nspecies of land animals were introduced; but we have as yet, as we shall\nfind in the sequel, no certain evidence that man was a witness of the\nmovements and sculpturing of the earth's crust, so important in the\npreparation of his future home, though statements to this effect have\nbeen made on grounds which we shall have to consider.\n\nIn the course of the pliocene the previously high temperature of the\nnorthern hemisphere was sensibly lowered, and at its close the\npleistocene period introduced a cold and wintry climate, along with\ngradual and unequal subsidence of the land, the whole producing that\nmost dismal of the geological ages, known as the 'glacial period.' At\nthis time much of the lower land of the continents was submerged and the\nmountains became covered with snow and ice, leaving space for vegetable\nand animal life only toward the south and in a few favoured spots in the\nhigher latitudes. There is much difference of opinion among geologists\nas to the extent, duration and vicissitudes of this reign of ice, but\nthere can be no doubt that it destroyed much of the animal and vegetable\nlife of the pliocene, or obliged it to migrate to the southward. In this\nperiod great deposits of mud, sand and gravel were laid down, which\nprepared the world for a new departure in the succeeding age. This we\nmay name the post-glacial, or early modern period, and in it we have the\nmost certain evidence of the existence of man, though the geographical\narrangement of our continents and their animal inhabitants were in many\nrespects different from what they now are. If geologists are right in\nthe conclusion already stated, that the close of the glacial period is\nas recent as 7,000 years ago, this will give us a narrow limit in time\nfor the age of man, at least under his present conditions.\n\nWhile, however, there is an absolute consensus of opinion among\ngeologists as to the existence of man at or about the close of the\nglacial age, in the northern temperate regions at least, there are some\nfacts which have been supposed to indicate a pre-glacial human period,\nor the advent of man even as early as the middle of the cenozoic time.\nThese merit a short consideration.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE EARLIEST TRACES OF MAN\n\n\nIn the eocene, or earliest cenozoic, it is not pretended by anyone that\nman existed, except inferentially, on the ground that if the remains we\nknow in the earliest caves and gravels belong to men who were developed\nfrom apes on the method of natural selection, their ancestors must have\nexisted, at least in a semi-human form, in the eocene. But no such\nprecursors of man are yet known to us. It would have been pleasant to\nbelieve that man arrived in time to see the beautiful forests and to\nenjoy the mild climate of the golden age of the miocene, and this would\nhave agreed with some human traditions; but the probabilities are\nagainst it, as we know no one species of higher animal of the many found\nin the miocene that has survived to our time. The privilege of enjoying\nthe forests of the miocene age seems to have been reserved for some\nlarge and specialised monkeys, which even Darwinians can scarcely claim\nas probable ancestors of man.[6] It would appear also that owing to\nincreasing refrigeration of climate these apes were either obliged to\nleave Europe for warmer latitudes or became extinct in the succeeding\npliocene.\n\n[6] _Dryopithecus_ and _Mesopithecus_.\n\nThere are, however, in France two localities, one in the upper and the\nother in the middle miocene, which have afforded what are supposed to be\nworked flints.[7] The geological age of the deposits seems in both cases\nbeyond question, but doubts have been cast, and this seemingly with some\nreason, on the artificial character of the flint flakes, while in the\ncase of some examples which appear to be scrapers and borers, like those\nin use long afterward by semi-civilised peoples for working in bone and\nskin, there are grave doubts whether they actually came from the miocene\nbeds. Lastly, it has even been suggested that these flints may be the\nhandiwork of miocene apes, a suggestion not so unreasonable as at first\nsight it appears, when taken in connection with the working instincts of\nbeavers and other animals. Monkeys, however, seem to have less of this\ngift as artificers than most other creatures. On the whole, we must\nregard the existence of miocene man as not proven, though, if it should\nprove to be a fact, it may be useful to some of the scoffers of these\ndays to know that it would not be so irreconcilable with the Biblical\naccount of creation as they seem to suppose. It might, however, prove a\nserious stumbling-block to orthodox Darwinians, and might raise some\ndifficulties respecting antediluvian genealogies.\n\n[7] Puy, Courny and Thenay.\n\nIn the pliocene of Europe there are alleged to be instances of the\noccurrence of human bones. One of these is that of the skull now in the\nmuseum of Florence, supposed to have been found in the pliocene of the\nVal d'Arno. It is, however, a skull of modern type, and may have been\nbrought down from the surface by a landslip. But this explanation does\nnot seem to apply to the human remains found in lower pliocene beds at\nCastelnedolo, near Brescia. They include a nearly entire human skeleton,\nand are said by good observers to have been imbedded in undisturbed\npliocene beds. M. Quatrefages, who has described them, and whose\ntestimony should be considered as that of an expert, was satisfied that\nthe remains had not been interred, but were part of the original\ndeposit. Unfortunately the skull of the only perfect skeleton is said to\nhave been of fair proportions and superior to those of the ruder types\nof post-glacial men. This has cast a shade of suspicion on the\ndiscovery, especially on the part of evolutionists, who think it is not\nin accordance with theory that man should retrograde between the\npliocene and the early modern period, instead of advancing. Still we may\nask, why not? If men existed in the fine climates of the miocene and\nearly pliocene, why should they not have been a noble race, suited to\ntheir environment; and when the cold of the glacial period intervened,\nwith its scarcity and hardships, might they not have deteriorated, to be\nsubsequently improved when better conditions supervened? This would\ncertainly not be contradictory to experience in the case of varieties of\nother animals, however at variance with a hypothetical idea of\nnecessarily progressive improvement. Let us hope that the existence of\nEuropean pliocene man will be established, and that he will be found to\nhave been not of low and bestial type, but, as the discoveries above\nreferred to if genuine would indicate, a worthy progenitor of modern\nraces of men.\n\nIt still remains to inquire whether man may have made his appearance at\nthe close of the pliocene or in the early stages of the pleistocene,\nbefore the full development of the glacial conditions of that period.\nPerhaps the most important indications of this kind are those adduced by\nDr. Mourlon, of the Geological Survey of Belgium,[8] from which it would\nappear that worked flints and broken bones of animals occur in deposits,\nthe relations of which would indicate that they belong either to the\nbase of the pleistocene or close of the pliocene. They are imbedded in\nsands derived from eocene and pliocene beds, and supposed to have been\n_remani\u00e9_ by wind action. With the modesty of a true man of science,\nMourlon presents his facts, and does not insist too strongly on the\nimportant conclusion to which they seem to tend, but he has certainly\nestablished the strongest case yet on record for the existence of\ntertiary man. With this should, however, be placed the facts adduced in\na similar sense by Prestwich in his paper on the worked flints of\nIghtham.[9]\n\n[8] _Bulletin de l'Acad\u00e9mie Royale de Belgique_, 1889.\n\n[9] _Journal of the Geological Society_, London, May 1889.\n\nShould this be established, the curious result will follow that man must\nhave been the witness of two great continental subsidences, or deluges,\nthat of the early pleistocene and the early modern, the former of which,\nand perhaps the latter also, must have been accompanied with a great\naccess of cold in the northern hemisphere. It seems, however, more\nlikely that the facts will be found to admit of a different explanation.\n\nEvery reader of the scientific journals of the United States must be\naware of the numerous finds of 'pal\u00e6olithic' implements in 'glacial'\ngravels, indicating a far greater antiquity of man in America than on\nother grounds we have a right to imagine. I have endeavoured to show, in\na work published several years ago,[10] how much doubt on geological\ngrounds attaches to the reports of these discoveries, and how uncertain\nis the reference of the supposed implements to undisturbed glacial\ndeposits, and how much such of the 'pal\u00e6oliths' as appear to be the work\nof man resemble the rougher tools and rejectamenta of the modern\nIndians. But since the publication of that work, so great a number of\n'finds' have been recorded, that despite their individual improbability,\none was almost overwhelmed by the coincidence of so many witnesses. Now\nthe bubble seems to have been effectually pricked by Mr. W. H. Holmes,\nof the American Geological Survey, who has published his observations\nin the _American Journal of Anthology_ and elsewhere.[11]\n\n[10] _Fossil Man_, London, 1880.\n\n[11] _Science_, November 1892; _Journal of Geology_, 1893.\n\n[Illustration: SECTION AT TRENTON, ON THE DELAWARE, SHOWING THE RELATION\nOF THE STONE IMPLEMENTS TO THE GLACIAL (?) GRAVELS (after Holmes)]\n\nOne of the most widely-known examples was that of Trenton, on the\nDelaware, where there was a bed of gravel alleged to be pleistocene, and\nwhich seemed to contain enough of 'pal\u00e6olithic' implements to stock all\nthe museums in the world. The evidence of age was not satisfactory from\na geological point of view, and Holmes, with the aid of a deep\nexcavation made for a city sewer, has shown that the supposed implements\ndo not belong to the undisturbed gravel, but merely to a talus of loose\n_d\u00e9bris_ lying against it, and to which modern Indians resorted to find\nmaterial for implements, and left behind them rejected or unfinished\npieces. This alleged discovery has therefore no geological or\nanthropological significance. The same acute and industrious observer\nhas inquired into a number of similar cases in different parts of the\nUnited States, and finds all liable to objections on similar grounds,\nexcept in a few cases in which the alleged implements are probably not\nartificial. These observations not only dispose, for the present at\nleast, of pal\u00e6olithic man in America, but they suggest the propriety of\na revision of the whole doctrine of 'pal\u00e6olithic' and 'neolithic'\nimplements as held in Great Britain and elsewhere. Such distinctions are\noften founded on forms which may quite as well represent merely local or\ntemporary exigencies, or the _d\u00e9bris_ of old work-*shops, as any\ndifference of time or culture.\n\n[Illustration: CHIPPED QUARTZITES, MODERN AMERICAN (after Holmes)\n\nUpper line (1 to 6), unfinished and rejected pieces. Lower line (7 to\n18), progress of development from the unfinished oval form to finished\nlance and arrow-heads.]\n\nFor the present, therefore, we may afford to pass over with this slight\nnotice the alleged occurrence of miocene and pliocene man, and this the\nrather since, if such men ever existed in the northern hemisphere, the\ncold and submergence of the pleistocene must have cut them off from\ntheir more modern successors in such a way that man must practically\nhave made a new beginning at the close of the glacial age.\n\nI do not refer here to the finds of skulls and implements in the\nauriferous gravels of Western America. Some of these, if genuine, might\ngo back to the pliocene age, but in so far as the evidence now\navailable indicates, they all belong to the modern races of Indians,\nand, in one way or another, by fraud or error, have had assigned to them\na fabulous antiquity.\n\nThere still seems reason to believe that remains of man and his works\nexist in beds which are overlaid by boulders and gravel, implying a cold\nclimate. These may indicate the last portion of the glacial period\nproper, in which case the beds with human remains may be called\ninter-glacial, or they may indicate a partial relapse to the cold\nconditions occurring after the glacial age had passed away, and in the\nearly part of the modern period. My own view is, that it is most natural\nto draw the boundary line of the pleistocene and anthropic or modern at\nthe point where the earliest certain evidences of man appear, and that\nthe anthropic age will be found to include not only an early period of\nmild climate succeeding the glacial age, but a little later a return of\ncold, not comparable with that of the extreme glacial period, but\nsufficient seriously to affect human interests, and which almost\nimmediately preceded those physical changes which carried away\npal\u00e6ocosmic man, or the man of the earliest period, and many of his\ncompanion animals, and introduced the neanthropic or later human age. We\nshall find facts bearing on this in the sequel.\n\nIn the meantime, we may consider it as established beyond cavil that man\nwas already in Europe immediately after the close of the glacial period,\nand was contemporary with the species of animals, many of them large\nand formidable, which at that time occupied the land. He must have\nentered on the possession of a world more ample and richer in resources\nthan that which remains to us. The early post-glacial age was, like the\npreceding pliocene, a time of continental elevation, in which the dry\nland spread itself widely over the now submerged margins of the sea\nbasins. In Europe, the British Islands were connected with the mainland,\nand Ireland was united to England. The Rhine flowed northward to the\nOrkneys, through a wide plain probably wooded and swarming with great\nquadrupeds, now extinct or strange to Europe. The Thames and the Humber\nwere tributaries of the Rhine. The land of France and Spain extended out\nto the hundred-fathom line. The shallower parts of the Mediterranean\nwere dry land, and that sea was divided into two parts by land\nconnecting Italy with Africa. Possibly portions of the shallower areas\nof the Atlantic were so elevated as to connect Europe and America more\nclosely than at present.\n\nConnected with this elevation of the continents out of the sea was a\ngreat change of climate, whereby the cold of the pleistocene age passed\naway and a milder climate overspread the northern hemisphere, while the\nnewly-raised land and that vacated by snow and ice became clothed with\nvegetation, and were occupied by a rich quadrupedal fauna, including\neven in the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America, species of\nelephant, rhinoceros, and other genera now confined to the warmer\nclimates. This new and noble world was the rich heritage of primeval\nman.\n\nPictet has estimated the number of species of mammals inhabiting\nEurope in the palanthropic period at ninety-eight,[12] of which only\nfifty-seven now live there, the remainder being either wholly or locally\nextinct--that is, they are either not now existing in any part of the\nworld, or are found only beyond the limits of Central, Western, and\nSouthern Europe. The extinct species also include the largest and\nnoblest of all. It has been remarked that the assemblage of palanthropic\nspecies in Europe and Western Asia is so great and varied that with our\npresent experience we can scarcely imagine them to have existed\ncontemporaneously in the same region. For example, the association of\nspecies of elephant and rhinoceros, the musk-sheep, the reindeer, the\nCape hyena, and the hippopotamus seems to be incongruous.\n\n[12] Zittel, in a recent paper (1893), gives 110 species of mammals in\nthe pleistocene and early modern. Of these about twenty of the largest\nand most important are extinct.\n\nVarious theories have been proposed to remove the difficulty. Modern\nanalogies will allow us to believe in such astounding facts if we take\ninto account the probability of a warm climate, especially in summer,\nalong with a wooded state of the country providing much shelter, and\nwide continental plains affording facilities for seasonal migrations.\nThere were no doubt also climatal changes in the course of the age,\nwhich may have tended to the remarkable mixture of animal types in its\ndeposits. In connection with this there is now every reason to believe\nthat while, in its earlier part, the palanthropic age was distinguished\nby a warm climate, in its later portion a colder and more inclement\natmosphere crept over the northern hemisphere. As an illustration of\nthis, it is known that in the earlier part of the period a noble species\nof elephant named _Elephas antiquus_, and a rhinoceros (_R. Merkii_),\nabounded in Europe; but as the age advanced these species disappeared,\nand were replaced by the mammoth (_E. primigenius_) and the woolly\nrhinoceros (_R. tichorhinus_), animals clothed like the musk-ox in dense\nwool and hair, and evidently intended for a rigorous climate. With and\nsucceeding these last species, the reindeer becomes characteristic and\nabundant. It is, as we shall see, a point of much importance in what may\nbe called the prehistoric history of man, that he was introduced in a\nperiod of genial temperature as well as of wide continental extension,\nand survived to find his physical environment gradually becoming less\nfavourable, and the age ending in that great cataclysm which swept so\nmany species of animals and tribes of men out of existence, and reduced\nthe dry land of our continents to its present comparatively limited\narea.\n\nI should, perhaps, have noticed here the worked flints found so\nabundantly in some parts of the south of England, which have long\nattracted the attention of collectors, and have in some cases been\nreferred to glacial or pre-glacial times. I believe, however, they are\nall really post-glacial, though in some cases belonging to the earliest\nportion of that period.[13]\n\n[13] Prestwich on 'Ightham Beds,' _Journ. Geol. Soc._, 1893; Dawkins,\n_Journ. Anthrop. Soc._, 1894.\n\nWe may close the present chapter by presenting to the eye in a tabular\nform the series of events included in the pleistocene and modern periods\nof the great cenozoic time.\n\n\nLATER CENOZOIC, OR TERTIARY PERIOD\n\n(_In Ascending Order, or from the Older to the Newer_)\n\nNewer Pliocene.--A continental period of long duration, elevated land,\nmuch erosion, much volcanic action.\n\nPleistocene.--Irregular elevation and depression of the land, ending in\nwide submergence with cold climate. Glaciers on all mountains near to\ncoasts and ice-drift over submerged plains. Glacial period, with an\ninter-glacial mild period in the middle and great submergence of the\ncontinents toward the close.\n\nAnthropic.--_Palanthropic_, or post-glacial, in which the land emerges\nand attains a very wide extension, and is inhabited by a varied\nmammalian fauna. Man appears in Europe, Asia, and North Africa.\nTerminated by a recurrence of cold and great subsidence, deluging all\nthe lower lands. _Neanthropic._--Area of continents smaller than in the\nprevious period. Surviving races of men and species of animals repeople\nthe world. Modern races of men and modern animals.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE PALANTHROPIC AGE[14]\n\n[14] Called by some 'Pal\u00e6olithic,' from the use of implements like that\nfigured on p. 41.\n\n\nWe have now to inquire more particularly what we can learn as to the\nearliest men known to us, those who appeared in Western Asia and Europe\nat the close of the glacial period, when the cold had passed away and a\ngenial climate had succeeded, and when the continents of the northern\nhemisphere had attained to their largest dimensions, were clothed with a\nrich vegetation and tenanted by an abundant mammalian fauna, including\nmany large and important creatures now extinct.\n\nWe may first notice here a necessary limitation to our knowledge. The\ndry land of this age was of greater dimensions than at present. A large\nportion of what then was land is consequently now under the sea or\ndeeply buried in alluvial deposits. Hence if any men of this age lived\nnear the borders of the ocean, their remains must now be inaccessible,\nand the relics which we find must be those of inland tribes or of those\nwho were driven inland by the encroachments of the waters. Our means of\ninformation are thus limited, and we must be prepared to admit that\nthere may have been in this age great and populous communities of which\nwe can have no record, at least of a geological character. Hence if we\nshould find remains of only rude races of men, we should not be\njustified in assuming that all the peoples of the palanthropic age were\nof this character, more especially if we can find any indications that\nthe men whose remains are accessible to us, though rude themselves, may\nhave belonged to more advanced races.\n\n[Illustration: FLINT HACHE OF THE ANCIENT OR CHELLEAN TYPE, AURILLAC\n\n(after Carthaillac)]\n\nThe bones, implements and weapons, and _d\u00e9bris_ of the feasts of these\nprimitive peoples are to be found principally in caves of residence or\nof sepulture,[15] and in the alluvia deposited by rivers, and in a few\ncases in rock fissures or marine gravels, into which remains were\ndrifted, or in which they were deposited by water. Here, again, we have\nanother limitation, for it is possible that large populations may have\nlived on plains or in forests in perishable structures, and, like some\nmodern savages, may have disposed of their dead in such a way that their\nbones could not have been preserved. In such cases we can hope to\nobtain, and then very rarely, only stone implements and other\nimperishable relics.\n\n[15] Caverns, in relation to this subject, may be divided into those of\nresidence, in which early men have lived and have left therein the\n_d\u00e9bris_ of their food, the ashes and cinders of their fires, and\nimplements, &c.; those of sepulture, in which the bodies of the dead\nhave been deposited; and those of inundation, into which the bodies of\nanimals or men have been drifted by floods. The same cave may, however,\nexhibit these different conditions in the deposits on its successive\nfloors. Thus men may have inhabited a cave for a time; it may next have\nbeen invaded by river floods depositing mud, and it may subsequently\nhave been used for burial.\n\nNotwithstanding these limitations, however, it is wonderful that so much\nhas been recovered from the ground by the diligence of collectors, and\nthat the material thus obtained has proved so fertile in information\nrespecting our long-perished ancestors.\n\nSupposing, then, that we search for remains of pal\u00e6ocosmic men in river\nalluvia, or in caves of residence or burial, or in similar repositories,\nthe question next arises, by what means can we distinguish their bones\nfrom those of later times? The following criteria are available:\n\n(1) The remains were in their present condition at least as long ago as\nthe date of the earliest history or tradition. This evidence is of\ncourse of greatest value in those regions in which history extends\nfarthest back. Thus the remains of early men in the Lebanon caves, which\nwe know date much farther back than the arrival of the first Ph\u0153nicians\nand Canaanites in Syria, are in a different position, in so far as\nhistory is concerned, from those occurring in countries whose written\nhistory goes back only a few centuries.\n\n(2) The deposits containing these remains may underlie those holding\nrelics of historic times, or may indicate different physical conditions\nof the districts in which they occur from those known within historic\nperiods. This is the case with some river beds, as those of Grenelle,\nnear Paris, and with the successive deposits in old caves of residence.\n\n(3) They may be accompanied by remains of animals now extinct in the\nregions in question, and whose disappearance and replacement by the\nmodern fauna implies great lapse of time and physical changes; as, for\ninstance, when we find that men have left remains of their feasts\nholding bones of the extinct woolly rhinoceros and his contemporaries,\nor in now temperate climates, those of the reindeer.\n\n(4) The remains themselves may indicate a race or races of men and a\ncondition of the arts of life different from any known in the region in\nhistoric times. Thus we may have skulls and skeletons indicating men\nracially distinct from any now extant, and implements and weapons\ndifferent from those in use in the times of history or tradition.\n\nWe have now to consider what evidence of this kind vindicates the\nassertion that man existed on our continents in the second continental\nor post-glacial age, or, as others will have it, in the closing period\nof the glacial age, and was contemporary with the mammoth and other\ngreat beasts now extinct. This evidence, which has been accumulating\nwith great rapidity and relates to many parts of the northern\nhemisphere, is too voluminous to be reproduced here.[16] But a few\nexamples of it may be given, more especially from parts of the old world\nwhose history extends farthest back and where explorations have been\nmost extensive.\n\n[16] Reference may be made to Christy and Lartet, _Reliqui\u00e6 Aquitanic\u00e6_;\nQuatrefages, _Homme Fossile_; Dupont, _L'Homme pendant les Ages de\nPierre_; Carthaillac, _La France Pr\u00e9historique_; Dawkins, _Cave Hunting\nand Early Man in Britain_; _Fossil Men_ and _Modern Science in Bible\nLands_, by the author.\n\nMy first instance shall be one originally described by Canon Tristram,\nand which I had an opportunity to examine in 1884--the caverns or\nrock shelters in the face of the limestone cliff of the pass of\nNahr-el-Kelb, north of Beyrout. At this place, in old caverns partly\ncut away in the forming of the Roman road round the cliff, there is\na hard stalagmite, or modern limestone, produced by the calcareous\ndrippings from the rock. This is filled with broken bones intermixed\nwith flint flakes suitable for use as knives or spears or darts, and\noccasional fragments of charcoal. The bones are those of large animals,\nand have been broken for the extraction of the marrow; and the whole\nis evidently the remnants of the cuisine of some primitive tribe of\nhunters, now cemented into a somewhat hard stone by stalagmitic matter.\nThe bones are not those of the present animals of Syria, but principally\nof an extinct species of rhinoceros (_R. tichorhinus_), a species\nof bison, and other large mammals which inhabited the region in the\npleistocene and post-glacial periods. It is farther known that these\nanimals had been extinct long before the early Ph\u0153nicians penetrated\ninto this country, perhaps 3000 B.C., and that the deposits existed in\ntheir present state when the early Egyptian conquerors passed this way,\nat least 1500 B.C., on their march to encounter the Hittites. It is also\nknown that the earliest historic aborigines of the Lebanon, certain rude\ntribes which seem to have existed there before the migration of the\nPh\u0153nicians, subsisted on the modern animals of the district, and used\nflint implements and weapons somewhat differing from those of the\nearlier cave men of the region.[17] What, then, were these earlier cave\nmen? Certainly no people known to history, unless those whom we know as\nantediluvians.[18]\n\n[17] See the illustration on p. 97.\n\n[18] For more detailed description see _Modern Science in Bible Lands_;\nalso _Egypt and Syria_, in the _Bypaths of Bible Knowledge_, by the\nauthor.\n\nFrom the Lebanon we may pass to the west of Europe, where in France and\nBelgium a vast number of interesting relics of pal\u00e6ocosmic man have been\ndiscovered, and have been scientifically examined.\n\nWe may take as an illustration the cave of Goyet, on the cliffs bounding\nthe ravine of the Samson, a tributary of the Meuse. This cavern is about\nforty-five feet above the present ordinary level of the river, but in\npost-glacial times seems to have been invaded by inundations, as it\nshows on its floor five distinct ossiferous surfaces, separated by\nlayers of river-mud. These successive surfaces have been carefully\nexamined by M. Dupont, and their contents noted.\n\nOn the lowest of these, or the first in order of age, were found\nnumerous skeletons and detached bones of the cave lion and the cave\nbear; the former a possible ancestor of the lion of Western Asia, the\nlatter closely allied to the grizzly bear of North America, but both\nentirely extinct in Europe. One of the skeletons of the lion was of\nunusually large size, and so complete that when set up it forms the\nprincipal ornament of the cave collection in the Brussels Museum.\n\n[Illustration: CAVE OF GOYET, BELGIUM (section after Dupont)\n\n1 to 5, layers of clay deposited in the mammoth ages]\n\nThe next surface, the second in order of time, had a greater variety of\nanimal remains. The lion had disappeared, and instead hyenas haunted the\ncave, and had dragged in animal bones to be gnawed. These included\nremains of the cave bear, wolf, rhinoceros, mammoth, wild horse, wapiti,\nIrish stag, chamois, reindeer, wild ox, besides several smaller animals.\nThe above animals are now all unknown in the fauna of modern Europe,\nexcept the reindeer, the chamois, and the wolf. But the most remarkable\ndiscovery on this surface was that of a few human bones, gnawed like the\nothers by the hyenas. Man was thus already in the country, and\ncontemporary with all these animals. How the hyena obtained his bones,\nwhether from some neglected corpse or from some badly-constructed grave,\nwill never be known; but the discovery introduces us to a tribe or\nfamily of men coming as immigrants into a region already stocked with\nmany great quadrupeds. They probably did not yet dwell in caves, which,\nat a later and perhaps more inclement period, formed their homes. Dupont\nconcludes from the condition of the bones that on both the older\nsurfaces the cave bear was the later tenant, and had replaced the lion\non the first and the hyena on the second.\n\nThe remaining surfaces introduce us to man as a cave-dweller. On the\noldest of them are found not only abundance of _d\u00e9bris_ of food, but\nworked flints and bones, objects of ornament, and evidences of the use\nof fire. The two higher layers show works of art in more varied and\nimproved forms, as if a certain progress in the arts of life had taken\nplace during the occupancy of the cave. Among the objects in the upper\nlayers were red oxide of iron, showing the use of colouring matter for\nthe skin or garments, bone needles, proving the manufacture of clothing\nby sewing, bone points for darts, skilfully-barbed bone harpoons,\nornaments made of perforated teeth of animals, and fragments of bone,\nand a remarkable necklace of a hundred and twenty-four silicified shells\nof the genus _Turritella_, looking like spirals of agate, with a pendant\nmade of another and larger shell. These shells are not known to occur\nnearer to the cave than Rheims, in Champagne. It is scarcely too much to\nsay that this necklace might be worn by any lady of the present day. A\ncertain amount of imitative art is also shown in the carving of animal\nand plant forms and fancy devices on pieces of reindeer antler, which\nmay have served for handles of weapons or implements. But objects of\nmuch more elaborate design have been found in caverns of this age in\nFrance. (See illustrations on pp. 59 and 68.)\n\n[Illustration: LANCE-HEAD FORMED OF A FLINT FLAKE (CAVE OF MOUSTIER)\n\nSimilar to weapons found in the Goyet cave. The flat face shows a bulb\nof percussion (after Falsan)]\n\nThe food of these people, in so far as it was of an animal nature, may\nbe learned from the broken bones, which show that here as elsewhere they\ncarried into their caves only the legs and skulls of the larger animals\nthey killed, leaving the carcases; though it is quite possible that,\nlike North American hunting Indians, they may have stripped off portions\nof flesh from the back, and preserved the heart, liver, &c., which would\nof course leave no remains.\n\nDupont gives lists of the animals in each layer. Those in the lower of\nthe anthropic layers consist of twenty-three species of quadrupeds and\nsome bones of birds. Among the former were the mammoth, the rhinoceros,\ntwo species of bear, the horse, the reindeer, two other species of deer\nand two bovine animals. Even the lion, the hyena and the wolf were eaten\nby these people. It is interesting to note that the numerical\npreponderance was in favour of the reindeer and the wild horse, though\nremains were found indicating seven individuals of the mammoth, and four\nof the rhinoceros, as having fallen a prey to the old hunters. In the\nhighest bed the number of species and the proportions of each one are\nnearly the same, so that no material change in the fauna had occurred\nduring the occupancy of this cave. It may also be noted that while\nDupont calls this a cave of the mammoth age, the French arch\u00e6ologists\nare in the habit of naming similar deposits those of the reindeer age.\nThe age of both animals was in reality the same, except that in France\nthe reindeer seems to have survived the mammoth, and indeed we know\nthis to be the fact from its continuing in the forests of Germany till\nthe Roman times.\n\nThis cave may serve as an example of the manner in which the men of the\npalanthropic age make their appearance. Let it be observed also that\nthis is only one instance selected from many giving similar testimony,\nand that Dupont adduces evidence to show that there may have been a\ncontemporary plain-dwelling people, of whom less is known than of the\ntroglodytes. Let it also be noted that there are other caves in Belgium,\nto which we shall return later, which show how the neocosmic men\ncontemporary with the present fauna succeeded the men of the mammoth\nage.\n\nWe may now inquire as to the physical characters of the men of this\nperiod. It may be stated in answer to this question that two races of\nmen are known in the palanthropic age, both somewhat different from any\nexisting peoples, and known respectively as the Canstadt and Cro-magnon\nraces. As the latter is the most important and best known, we may take\nit first, though the former may locally at least have been the older.\n\nThe valley of the little river Vez\u00e8re, a tributary of the Dordogne, in\nthe south of France, abounding in overhanging rock-shelters, seems to\nhave been a favourite abode of the men of the mammoth and reindeer age.\nThe rock-shelter of Cro-magnon explored by Lartet is one of these, and\nthat of Laugerie Basse is on the opposite side of the same stream.\n\nThe former is a shelter or hollow under an over-*hanging ledge of\nlimestone, and excavated originally by the action of the weather on a\nsofter bed. It fronts the south-west, and, having originally been about\neight feet high and nearly twenty deep, must have formed a comfortable\nshelter from rain or cold or summer sun, and with a pleasant outlook\nfrom its front. Being nearly fifty feet wide, it was capacious enough to\naccommodate several families, and when in use it no doubt had trees or\nshrubs in front, and may have been further completed by stones, poles,\nor bark placed across the opening. It seems, however, in the first\ninstance to have been used only at intervals, and to have been left\nvacant for considerable portions of time. Perhaps it was visited only by\nhunting or war-parties. But subsequently it was permanently occupied,\nand this for so long a time that in some places a foot and a half of\nashes and carbonaceous matter, with bones, implements, &c., was\naccumulated. All of these, it may be remarked, belong to the\npalanthropic age. By this time the height of the cavern had been much\ndiminished, and, instead of clearing it out for future use, it was made\na place of burial, in which five individuals were interred. Of these,\nthree were men, one of great age, the other two probably in the prime of\nlife. The fourth and fifth were a woman of about thirty or forty years\nof age, and the remains of a f\u0153tus.\n\nThese bones, with others to be mentioned in connection with them,\nunquestionably belong to some of the oldest human inhabitants known in\nWestern Europe. They have been most carefully examined by several\ncompetent anatomists and arch\u00e6ologists, and the results have been\npublished with excellent figures in the _Reliqui\u00e6 Aquitanic\u00e6_, where\nwill also be found details of their characters and accompaniments, among\nwhich last were about three hundred small shells of different species\npierced for stringing or attachment to garments. These men are,\ntherefore, of the utmost interest for our present purpose, and I shall\ntry so to divest the descriptions of anatomical details as to give a\nclear notion of their character. The doubts at one time cast on the age\nof these skeletons have been removed by the discovery of others at\nLaugerie Basse, Mentone, &c. They are no doubt palanthropic, though not\nof the earliest part of the period. The 'Old Man of Cro-magnon' was of\ngreat stature, being nearly six feet high. More than this, his bones\nshow that he was of the strongest and most athletic muscular\ndevelopment; and the bones of the limbs have the peculiar form which is\ncharacteristic of athletic men habituated to rough walking, climbing,\nand running; for this is, I believe, the real meaning of the enormous\nstrength of the thigh-bone and the flattened condition of the leg in\nthis and other old skeletons. It occurs to some extent, though much less\nthan in this old man, in American skeletons. His skull presents all the\ncharacters of advanced age, though the teeth had been worn down to the\nsockets without being lost; which, again, is a character often observed\nin rude peoples of modern times. The skull proper, or brain-case, is\nvery long--more so than in ordinary modern skulls--and this length is\naccompanied with a great breadth; so that the brain was of greater size\nthan in average modern men, and the frontal region was largely and well\ndeveloped. The face, however, presented very peculiar characters. It was\nextremely broad, with projecting cheek-bones and heavy jaw, in this\nresembling the coarse types of the American face, and the eye-orbits\nwere square and elongated laterally in a manner peculiar to the skulls\nof this age. The nose was large and prominent, and the jaws projected\nsomewhat forward. This man, therefore, had, as to his features, some\nresemblance to the harsher type of American physiognomy, with\noverhanging brows, small and transverse eyes, high cheek-bones, and\ncoarse mouth. He had not lived to so great an age without some rubs, for\nhis thigh-bone showed a depression which must have resulted from a\nsevere wound--perhaps from the horn of some wild animal or the spear of\nan enemy.\n\n[Illustration: OUTLINE OF THE SKULL OF THE 'OLD MAN OF CRO-MAGNON'\n\n(after Christy and Lartet)]\n\nThe woman presented similar characters of stature and cranial form\nmodified by her sex, and in form and visage closely resembled her\nsisters of the American wilderness in the pre-Columbian times. If her\nhair and complexion were suitable, she would have passed at once for an\nAmerican-Indian woman, but one of unusual size and development. Her head\nbears sad testimony to the violence of her age and people. She died from\nthe effects of a blow from a stone-headed pogamogan or spear, which has\npenetrated the right side of the forehead with so clean a fracture as to\nindicate the extreme rapidity and force of its blow. It is inferred from\nthe condition of the edges of this wound that she may have survived its\ninfliction for two weeks or more. If, as is most likely, the wound was\nreceived in some sudden attack by a hostile tribe, they must have been\ndriven off or have retired, leaving the wounded woman in the hands of\nher friends to be tended for a time, and then buried, either with other\nmembers of her family or with others who had perished in the same\nskirmish. Unless the wound was inflicted in sleep, during a night\nattack, she must have fallen, not in flight, but with her face to the\nfoe, perhaps aiding the resistance of her friends or shielding her\nlittle ones from destruction. With the people of Cro-magnon, as with the\nAmerican Indians, the care of the wounded was probably a sacred duty,\nnot to be neglected without incurring the greatest disgrace and the\nvengeance of the guardian spirits of the sufferers.\n\nUnreasonable doubts have been cast on the burial of the dead by\npal\u00e6ocosmic men. The burial of men of the Cro-magnon race at that place\nand at Laugerie Basse and Mentone is established by the most unequivocal\nevidence; and interments of men of the Canstadt race have been found at\nSpy, in Belgium. Of course, even if interment proper had not been\npractised, there might have been cremation, as among the Tasmanians, or\nburial on stages or in huts, as among some American Indians. Still, that\ninterment was practised we know, and this carries with it the certainty\nthat our pal\u00e6ocosmic men must have had some simple ideas of religion.\n\n[Illustration: THE FIRST SKELETON FOUND IN THE MENTONE CAVES\n\n(after Rivi\u00e8re)]\n\nThe skulls of these people have been compared to those of the modern\nEsthonians or Lithuanians; but on the authority of M. Quatrefages it is\nstated that, while this applies to the probably later race of smaller\nmen found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not apply so well to the\npeople of Cro-magnon. Are, then, these people the types of any ancient,\nor of the most ancient, European race? The answer is that they are types\nof the cave men of the mammoth age in Europe. Another example is the\nremarkable skeleton of Mentone, in the south of France, found under\ncircumstances equally suggestive of great antiquity. Dr. Rivi\u00e8re, in a\nmemoir on this skeleton, illustrated by two beautiful photographs, shows\nthat the characters of the skull and of the bones of the limbs are\nsimilar to those of the Cro-magnon skeleton, indicating a perfect\nidentity of race, while the objects found with the skeleton are similar\nin character. I had an opportunity of verifying his description by an\nexamination of the skeleton in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in\n1883; and more recent discoveries at Mentone have confirmed the\nconclusion that this man really represents a race of giants, some of\nthem seven feet high, who inhabited Southern Europe in the palanthropic\nage. A similar skeleton found by Carthaillac, at Laugerie Basse, was\nburied under a great thickness of accumulated _d\u00e9bris_ of cookery, as\nwell as of large stones fallen from above. This skeleton had its shell\nornaments in place on the forehead, arms, legs and feet, in a manner\nwhich would induce the belief that they had been attached to a\nhead-dress, sleeves, leggings, and shoes or moccasins. (See illustration\non p. 79.)\n\n[Illustration: HANDLE OF A PIERCER, OR BODKIN, IN BONE, FROM LAUGERIE\nBASSE, IN FORM OF A DEER\n\n(a) Hollow for thumb; (b) hollow for finger. Reduced to one-half. From a\ncast of the original]\n\n[Illustration: Section at A.A.\n\nFLINT FLAKE KNIFE, FOUND IN THE HAND OF THE 'GIANT' SKELETON OF MENTONE\n\n(after Evans)]\n\nThe ornaments of Cro-magnon were perforated shells from the Atlantic and\npieces of ivory. Those at Mentone were perforated _Neritin\u00e6_ from the\nMediterranean and canine teeth of the deer. In both cases there was\nevidence that these ancient people painted themselves with red oxide of\niron, and used bodkins of bone, and long and beautifully-formed flint\nknives, perhaps for dividing their food, or perhaps for sacrificial\npurposes. Skulls found at Clichy and Grenelle in 1868 and 1869 are\ndescribed by Professor Broca and M. Fleurens as of the same general\ntype, and the remains found at Gibraltar and in the cave of Paviland, in\nEngland, seem also to have belonged to this race. The celebrated Engis\nskull from one of the Belgian caves, which is believed to have belonged\nto a contemporary of the mammoth, is also of this type, though less\nmassive than that of Cro-magnon; and lastly, even the somewhat degraded\nNeanderthal skull, found in a cave near D\u00fcsseldorf, though, like those\nof Clichy, Canstadt, Spy and Gibraltar, inferior in frontal development,\nis referable to the same peculiar long-headed style of man, in so far as\ncan be judged from the portion that remains, though certainly to a ruder\nand more degraded variety, commonly known as the Canstadt man as\ndistinguished from the Engis or Cro-magnon.\n\n[Illustration: NEANDERTHAL SKULL--TWO OUTLINES: THE OUTER GIVING THE\nMORE CORRECT FORM (from _Science_)]\n\nLet it be observed, then, that these skulls are probably the oldest\nknown in the world, and they are all referable to two varieties of one\nrace of men; and let us ask what they tell as to the position and\ncharacter of palanthropic man. The testimony is here fortunately\nwell-nigh unanimous. All anatomists and arch\u00e6ologists admit the high and\nhuman character of the Engis and even the Neanderthal skulls.\n\n[Illustration: SKULL OF CANSTADT TYPE FOUND AT SPY, BELGIUM, BY FRAIPONT\nAND LOHEST]\n\nBroca, who has carefully studied the Cro-magnon skulls, has the\nfollowing general conclusions: 'The great volume of the brain, the\ndevelopment of the frontal region, the fine elliptical profile of the\nanterior portion of the skull, and the orthognathous form of the upper\nfacial region, are incontestably evidences of superiority, which are met\nwith usually only in the civilised races. On the other hand, the great\nbreadth of face, the alveolar prognathism, the enormous development of\nthe ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the\nmuscular insertions, especially of the masticatory muscles, give rise to\nthe idea of a violent and brutal race.'\n\nHe adds that this apparent antithesis, seen also in the limbs as well as\nin the skull, accords with the evidence furnished by the associated\nweapons and implements of a rude hunter-life, and at the same time of no\nmean degree of taste and skill in carving and other arts. He might have\nadded that this is the antithesis seen in the American tribes, among\nwhom art and taste of various kinds, and much that is high and spiritual\neven in thought, coexisted with barbarous modes of life and intense\nferocity and cruelty. The god and the devil were combined in these\nraces, but there was nothing of the mere brute.\n\nRivi\u00e8re remarks, with expressions of surprise, the same contradictory\npoints in the Mentone skeleton: its grand development of brain-case and\nhigh facial angle--even higher apparently than in most of these ancient\nskulls--combined with other characters which indicate a low type and\nbarbarous modes of life.\n\nAnother point which strikes us in reading the descriptions of these\nskeletons is the indication which they seem to present of an extreme\nlongevity. The massive proportions of the body, the great development\nof the muscular processes, the extreme wearing of the teeth among a\npeople who predominantly lived on flesh and not on grain, the\nobliteration of the sutures of the skull, along with indications of slow\nossification of the ends of the long bones, point in this direction, and\nseem to indicate a slow maturity and great length of life in this most\nprimitive race.\n\nThe picture would be incomplete did we not add that Quatrefages has\ndescribed a single skull, that of Truch\u00e8re, from deposits of this age,\nwhich shows that these gigantic men were contemporaneous with a feebler\nrace of smaller stature and with different cranial characters, and\ninhabiting in all likelihood a more eastern region.\n\nIt is further significant that there is evidence to show that the larger\nand stronger race was that which prevailed in Europe at the time of its\ngreatest elevation above the sea and greatest horizontal extent, and\nwhen its fauna included many large quadrupeds now extinct. This race of\ngiants was thus in the possession of a greater continental area than\nthat now existing, and had to contend with gigantic brute rivals for the\npossession of the world. It is also not improbable that this early race\nbecame extinct in Europe in consequence of the physical changes which\noccurred in connection with the subsidence that reduced the land to its\npresent limits, and that the feebler race which succeeded came in as the\nappropriate accompaniment of a diminished land-surface and a less\ngenial climate in the early historic period. The older races are those\nusually classed as pal\u00e6olithic, and are supposed to antedate the period\nof polished stone; but this may, to some extent, be a prejudice of\ncollectors, who have arrived at a foregone conclusion as to distinctions\nof this kind. Judging from the great cranial capacity of the older race\nand the small number of their skeletons found, it might be fair to\nsuppose that they represent rude outlying tribes belonging to nations\nwhich elsewhere had attained to greater population and culture.\n\nLastly, all of these old European races were Turanian, Mongolian, or\nAmerican in their head-forms and features, as well as in their habits,\nimplements, and arts. In other words, their nearest affinities were with\nraces of men which in the modern world are the oldest and most widely\ndistributed.\n\nThe reader, reflecting on what he has learned from history, may be\ndisposed here to ask, Must we suppose Adam to have been one of these\nTuranian men, like the 'Old Man of Cro-magnon'? In answer, I would say\nthat there is no good reason to regard the first man as having resembled\na Greek Apollo or an Adonis. He was probably of sterner and more\nmuscular mould. But he was probably more akin to the more delicate and\nrefined race represented by the solitary skull of Truch\u00e8re, while the\ngigantic pal\u00e6ocosmic men of the European caves are more likely to have\nbeen representatives of that terrible and powerful race who filled the\nantediluvian world with violence, and who reappear in postdiluvian\ntimes as the Anakim and traditional giants, who constitute a feature in\nthe early history of so many countries. Perhaps nothing is more curious\nin the revelations as to the most ancient cave men than that they\nconfirm the old belief that there were 'giants in those days.' At the\nsame time we must bear in mind that the more diminutive race which\nsurvived must have existed previously in some part of the world, and\nmust have furnished the survivors of the succeeding subsidence (see\nillustration on p. 82).\n\nAnd now let us pause for a moment to picture these so-called pal\u00e6olithic\nmen. What could the 'Old Man of Cro-magnon' have told us, had we\nbeen able to sit by his hearth and listen understandingly to his\nspeech?--which, if we may judge from the form of his palate-bones, must\nhave resembled more that of the Americans or Mongolians than of any\nmodern European people. He had, no doubt, travelled far, for to his\nstalwart limbs a long journey through forests and over plains and\nmountains would be a mere pastime. He may have bestridden the wild\nhorse, which seems to have abounded at the time in France, and he may\nhave launched his canoe on the waters of the Atlantic. His experience\nand memory might extend back a century or more, and his traditional lore\nmight go back to the times of the first mother of our race. Did he live\nin that wide post-pliocene continent which extended westward through\nIreland? Did he know and had he visited the more cultured nations that\nlived in the great plains of the Mediterranean Valley, or on that\nnameless river which flowed through the land now covered by the German\nOcean? Had he visited or seen from afar the great island Atlantis, whose\ninhabitants could almost see in the sunset sky the islands of the blest?\nCould he have told us of the huge animals of the antediluvian world, and\nof the feats of the men of renown who contended with these animal\ngiants? We can but conjecture all this. But, mute though they may be as\nto the details of their lives, the man of Cro-magnon and his\ncontemporaries are eloquent of one great truth, in which they coincide\nwith the Americans and with the primitive men of all the early ages.\nThey tell us that primitive man had the same high cerebral organisation\nwhich he possesses now, and, we may infer, the same high intellectual\nand moral nature, fitting him for communion with God and headship over\nthe lower world. They indicate also, like the mound-builders, who\npreceded the North American Indian, that man's earlier state was the\nbest--that he had been a high and noble creature before he became a\nsavage. It is not conceivable that their high development of brain and\nmind could have spontaneously engrafted itself on a mere brutal and\nsavage life. These gifts must be remnants of a noble organisation\ndegraded by moral evil. They thus justify the tradition of a Golden and\nEdenic Age, and mutely protest against the philosophy of progressive\ndevelopment as applied to man, while they bear witness to the\nsimilarity in all important characters of the oldest prehistoric men\nwith that variety of our species which is at the present day at once the\nmost widely extended and the most primitive in its manners and\nusages.[19]\n\n[19] Perhaps no feature of this early human age is more remarkable than\nits artistic productions. Recent testimony, more especially that of the\nvery careful explorers of the deposits at Spy, in Belgium, seems to show\nexistence of the potter's art, though this until lately was denied.\nThese people ornamented their clothing with pearly and coloured shells,\nand made beautiful necklaces. We have already noticed that found in the\ncave of Goyet. At Sordes, in the Pyrenees, in a very old interment of\nthis period, there was a necklace of forty-three teeth of the cave lion\nand cave bear, carved with figures of animals (see p. 71). The handle of\na piercer, represented on p. 59, is a marvel of skilful adaptation of an\nanimal form to produce a handle fitted to be firmly and conveniently\ngrasped by the human hand. The figure of the mammoth on p. 68 shows how\na few bold lines may produce a vigorous and truthful sketch; and\nmultitudes of such carvings and drawings have been found in France as\nwell as in Germany and Belgium. Even the chipping of flint is an art\nrequiring much skill to produce the fine knives, spears, &c., so\ncommonly found, and there is evidence that these were fitted into strong\nand probably artistic handles. All this and much more testifies to the\nfact that our pal\u00e6ocosmic men were no mean artists as well as\nartificers.\n\n[Illustration: OUTLINE OF MAMMOTH, CARVED ON A PLATE OF IVORY, FROM THE\nCAVE OF LA MADELEINE]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nSUBDIVISIONS AND CONDITIONS OF THE PALANTHROPIC AGE\n\n\nWhile all geologists and arch\u00e6ologists are agreed in the existence of\nthe men contemporary with the mammoth and reindeer in Europe, and in the\nfact of two or even three races of men having existed in that period,\nvarious opinions are entertained as to the succession of events and the\nchronological classification of the remains. Mortillet, whose\narrangement has been usually adopted in France, recognises a period of\nchipped stone or pal\u00e6olithic period, corresponding to the palanthropic\nage, and a period of polished stone, corresponding to the neanthropic\nage. Within the former he believes that it is possible to separate\ndifferent ages,[20] from the character of the implements and other\nremains. The first two are characterised by the presence of two\nelephants, the mammoth and another species (_E. antiquus_), the next two\nby the mammoth associated with the cave bear and reindeer, the last by\nthe nearly entire predominance of the reindeer. Dupont is content in\nBelgium to recognise a mammoth age and a reindeer age, but the latter\nperhaps includes some deposits which are properly neanthropic.\n\n[20] Respectively the Achulienne, Chellienne, Mousterienne,\nSoloutrienne, and Magdalenienne.\n\nCarthaillac places the whole palanthropic age as quaternary, properly\nso-called, which he separates from the tertiary on the one hand and the\nmodern on the other, and divides his quaternary into two stages, the\nfirst characterised by _E. antiquus_ and Mortillet's Chellean men, the\nsecond by the mammoth and reindeer--the earlier of these two periods\nbeing warm and moist, the latter cold and dry. The table appended to\nthis chapter is modified from those of Carthaillac. Dawkins, while\nadmitting a similar twofold division, calls the earlier men those of the\nriver gravels, the latter those of the caves.\n\nThis twofold division of the palanthropic age requires some\nconsideration. In the first place, there is reason to believe that the\nCanstadt race locally preceded that of Cro-magnon. I say locally, for no\none supposes that they are distinct species, and as varietal forms they\nmay have originated from a common intermediate ancestor, or the humbler\nrace may be the earlier, and the higher race an improvement on it, or\nthe lower race may have been a degraded type of the higher. Probably\nalso there was a third, the Truch\u00e8re race, and the Cro-magnon race may\nhave been a half-breed or metis progeny.\n\n[Illustration: TOOTH OF CAVE BEAR, WITH ENGRAVING OF A SEAL, FROM A\nCOLLAR FOUND AT SORDES, PYRENEES (after Carthaillac)]\n\nAgain, there was an undoubted change of fauna within the palanthropic\nage, and this dependent on or accompanied by a change of climate. The\nearlier elephant of the period (_E. antiquus_) and its companion animals\nare believed to have been suited to a warm climate, and to have entered\nEurope from the south-*east. With, or immediately after, them came man,\nand this conclusion harmonises with human physiology, for we know that\nman must have originated in a warm climate, and must in the first place\nhave been a feeder on fruits and grains or other nutritious vegetable\nproducts. In this early stage he would be nearly destitute of implements\nand weapons. But in the succeeding cold period, one tribe after another\nmight be obliged to resort to hunting habits, to the use of fire and of\nclothing, and of natural and artificial shelter. Hence the peculiarities\nof the cave men, who, while they advanced in art, may have also advanced\nin ferocity and warlike habits, under the pressure of necessity and\ncompetition. Hence also their association more and more closely with\nsuch animals as the reindeer, the hairy mammoth, and the woolly\nrhinoceros, while the previous species had migrated to the south or\nperished. Thus it would appear that the men of the mammoth age may not\nbe really the most primitive men, but a derivative from them under\npressure of a severe climate. This possibility may be summed up as\nfollows. If the early part of the post-glacial or palanthropic era was\ncharacterised by a milder climate than its later period, this may have\nhad much to do with the change in implements and weapons. The earliest\nmen probably subsisted merely on natural fruits and other vegetable\nproductions. To secure these in a mild climate they would require no\nimplements, except perhaps to dig for roots or to crack nuts. If they\nmigrated into a colder climate, or if the climate became more severe,\nthey might be obliged to become hunters and fishermen, and would invent\nnew implements and weapons, not because they had advanced in\ncivilisation, but, as Lamech has it in Genesis, 'because of the ground\nwhich the Lord had cursed,' and which would no longer yield food to\nthem. At the same time they might contend with one another for the most\nsheltered and productive stations, and so war might further stimulate\nthat very questionable advance in civilisation which consists in the\nimprovement of weapons of destruction. We have much to learn as to these\nmatters; but we must, if we have any regard to physiology and to natural\nprobability, start from the idea that the most primitive men were\nfrugivorous and fitted for a mild climate. In this case we should\nexpect that these earliest men would leave behind them scarcely any\nweapons or implements except of the simplest kind, and that their\napparent progress in the arts of war and the chase might in reality be\nevidence, up to a certain point at least, of increasing barbarism.\nPrimitive as well as modern men present in these respects strange\nparadoxes.\n\nWe have to inquire in the sequel as to the cause of the final\ndisappearance of the pal\u00e6ocosmic men, and as to the question whether\nhistory is cognisant of any such human period as that which has occupied\nus in this chapter, or whether, as has sometimes been assumed, it is\naltogether prehistoric.\n\nOn the subject of the correlation of the French and Belgian discoveries\nas to primitive man, a most interesting and important communication was\nmade by Dupont to the Geological Society of Belgium in 1892.[21] The\nveteran explorer of the Belgian caves addresses himself in this paper to\na careful comparison of the geological relations, animal remains and\nhuman relics in these caves, and in the gravels and 'quaternary' clays\nassociated with them. He arrives at the conclusion, which I had already\nstated,[22] that these deposits are contemporaneous and show similar\nstages, but that the mammoth age properly so-called, in which the\nprimitive people fed on the mammoth and its companion the woolly\nrhinoceros, extended to a later date in Belgium than in France, so that\nthe mammoth age of Dupont and the reindeer age of the French\narch\u00e6ologists overlap one another. He notes in connection with this that\nthere is evidence of the continued existence of the mammoth in the\nso-called reindeer age of France, in the discovery in caves of that\nperiod of plates of ivory with the portrait of the mammoth engraved on\nthem. It would therefore appear either that the mammoth earlier became\nextinct or rare in France, perhaps on account of climatal changes, or\nperhaps because of destruction by man, or that the habits of the French\npopulations changed in such a way as to cause them to confine themselves\nto smaller game. In either case, we now find that the whole palanthropic\nage is one period. On the other hand, Dupont agrees with Mortillet that\nthere is a hiatus, physical, pal\u00e6ontological and anthropological,\nbetween the so-called pal\u00e6olithic and neolithic periods, that is,\nbetween the palanthropic and neanthropic ages.\n\n[21] _Bulletin de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Belge de G\u00e9ologie_, janvier 1893. This\npaper should be studied by all interested in the subject.\n\n[22] _Fossil Men._\n\nDupont holds that the plain-dwellers (_Pedionomytes_, as he calls them)\nwere the earliest known men, corresponding to the oldest gravel remains\nof Dawkins and Prestwich, and points out that their implements are in\nsize and form, though not in material and finish, allied to those of the\npolished stone age, which might thus be regarded as an improved\ncontinuation or revival of this first period. This might be read to\nmean, as above maintained, that the earliest men were peaceful and\nperhaps in part agricultural, that they were succeeded by lawless,\npowerful, artistic and savage peoples, and when the latter were swept\naway that a remnant of the primitive stock repossessed the land. If this\nproves to be the net result, it will correspond exactly with our old\nhistorical beliefs.\n\nI was struck in reading this paper with a remark of Dupont on the\nunprogressive character of the men of the mammoth age, who seem to have\nmade so little advance in the arts of life during the period of their\noccupation of Europe. Perhaps he makes too great an estimate of the\nlength of their residence, or does not sufficiently consider how long\nmen about their stage of civilisation have remained at the same point in\nthe historic period. Nor does he consider the possibility of the cave\nmen belonging to ruder tribes of a race which may have inhabited better\nif more perishable residences elsewhere. In any case, all experience\nshows that to such a people any great advance in the arts could come\nonly by missionary influence from abroad, or by the appearance of some\ngreat inventive genius among themselves; and no good fortune of this\nkind seems to have happened to the Canstadt or Cro-magnon men, or if it\ndid, they rejected their opportunity, as so many others have since done.\n\nStill, perhaps, we need not pity them too much. They lived in a young\nand fresh condition of the earth, enjoyed a vigorous health, and were\ngifted with rare strength and energy. They were bountifully provided\nfor by nature as to food and clothing, were in slavery to no man, lived\nin families bound together by ties of affection, and were free to\nmigrate over vast territories according to the exigencies of the\nseasons. They had some taste in dress and ornaments, and no doubt\nenjoyed their clever carvings on bone and ivory as much as any modern\nlovers of art their most finished treasures. A Cro-magnon 'brave,' tall,\nmuscular and graceful in movement, clad in well-dressed skins,\nornamented with polished shells and ivory pendants, with a pearly shell\nhelmet, probably decked with feathers, and armed with his flint-headed\nlance and skull-cracker of reindeer antler handsomely carved, must have\nbeen a somewhat noble savage, and he must have rejoiced in the chase of\nthe mammoth, the rhinoceros, the bison, and the wild horse and reindeer,\nand in launching his curiously-constructed harpoons against the salmon\nand other larger fish that haunted the rivers.\n\nNor was he destitute of higher hopes. He laid his dead reverently in the\nbosom of mother earth, with such things as had been pleasant or useful\nin life, and his rudimentary bible, or 'book of the dead,' must have at\nleast included the idea--'This corruptible shall put on incorruption,\nthis mortal immortality.' That is the meaning of such funeral gifts in\nevery part of the world, and has always been so, as far as we can learn.\nBut the belief in immortality implies also a belief in a God or gods.\nFor if there is a spiritual world for the dead, there must be a Power to\ncare for them there. Whether these beliefs were originally implanted in\nhim when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, or were\ntaught to him by special revelation, we do not know, but they were there\nas a foundation on which he could, with the aid of his sense of right\nand wrong, build a happy and harmless life. That he did not always do so\nwe have some sad evidence, to be gathered even from his bones; and the\ntestimony of tradition is that his great sin was that of inhuman\nviolence, and it was for this that he was swept away by the Flood, and\nreplaced by men of more peaceful mould, whom but for that catastrophe he\nwould soon have annihilated.\n\nCarthaillac[23] devotes a chapter to the mortuary customs of the men of\nthe quaternary (palanthropic) age. He shows that the statement sometimes\nmade that these men did not care for the dead is entirely incorrect,\nthough he believes that we know comparatively little of their burials,\nowing to the circumstance that only those in caverns were likely to be\npreserved or discovered. The discoveries at Spy, in Belgium, show that\neven the Canstadt race, the lowest in development, and probably in art,\ninterred the bodies of their dead, while a large number of interments of\nthe Cro-magnon race are known. He calls attention to the fact that in\nall of these the body lies on its side. The hands are brought up to the\nhead or neck, and the knees are bent, sometimes slightly, sometimes very\nstrongly, so as to give the body a crouching posture (p. 79). The idea\nseems to have been to place the body in the attitude of sleep or of\nrest. The deceased was arrayed in the garments and ornaments worn during\nlife, and not infrequently a quantity of red oxide of iron was buried\nwith, or has been scattered over, the body. Flint knives and lances seem\noften to have been placed with the dead. It is needless to say that all\nthis recalls the burial customs of many rude tribes of men up to modern\ntimes.\n\n[23] _Homme Pr\u00e9historique._\n\nThere is some reason to believe that occasionally, at least, the flesh\nhas been partially removed from the bones before interment. This reminds\nus of the custom of some American tribes, who were in the habit of\ndisinterring the dead after a temporary burial, carefully cleaning the\nbones, and then placing them wrapped in skins in their tribal ossuaries.\nIt would seem, however, that the primitive men when they removed the\nflesh did so in a recent state. Perhaps this practice was resorted to\nonly when the body had to be kept for some time, or carried some\ndistance for interment. If the body was disembowelled and the remaining\nflesh and ligaments dried, it would be reduced very nearly to the\ncondition of the imperfect mummies of the Guanches of the Canaries and\nof the Peruvians. Thus we may suppose that we have here a rudimentary\ncondition of the art of the embalmer.\n\n[Illustration: THE SKELETON OF LAUGERIE BASSE, DORDOGNE, SHOWING THE\nPOSITION OF THE PERFORATED SHELLS ON THE LIMBS AND FOREHEAD (after\nCarthaillac)]\n\nSome questions still remain as to the races of men actually known to us\nin the palanthropic age. It has already been explained that in the\nearliest part of this period, that characterised by the presence of the\n_Elephas antiquus_ in Europe, there are evidences of the existence of\nman, and this in a more genial climate than that prevailing later. Of\nthese men we have no certain osseous remains. Should these be found, we\nmay anticipate that their characters would be peculiar, and would\nindicate a frugivorous rather than a carnivorous mode of life, and less\nof rude power than that evidenced by the Canstadt and Cro-magnon races.\n\nOf the latter, though both are of the same faunal period, and therefore\ngeologically contemporaneous, the former, the lower of the two in point\nof physical development, is apparently in Western Europe the older, and\nrepresents the earlier part of the mammoth age, when the climate had\nbecome cooler and _Elephas primigenius_ had succeeded to _E. antiquus_.\nThe Cro-magnon race, beginning in this period, goes on to the close of\nthe mammoth age, which, as already stated, coincides with the reindeer\nage of the French arch\u00e6ologists. This Cro-magnon race I am disposed to\nregard as a mixed or half breed tribe, produced by the union of the\nCanstadt peoples with the higher race already hinted at. This last may\npossibly be represented by a few skulls more resembling those of the men\nof the neanthropic age, which are occasionally found in the burials of\nthe Cro-magnon people, and of which that found at Truch\u00e8re has been\nalready referred to.\n\nWe have thus traces of two primitive or antediluvian races, one probably\nmild and subsisting on vegetable food, and another fierce, rude and\ncarnivorous, perhaps a product of degeneracy of the former; and a third,\nor mixed race, of greater physical power and energy than either of the\nothers. This is of course merely a hypothetical reading of the facts,\nbut it is by no means improbable, and would, as we shall see, bring them\ninto close relation with the teachings of history and tradition as to\nthe antediluvian age.\n\nThe most careful and elaborate studies of these several types have been\nmade by MM. Quatrefages and Hamy. The former sums up the races of fossil\nor 'quaternary' men as six in number, viz.: (1) The Canstadt;\n(2) the Cro-magnon; (3) the mesitocephalic race of Furfooz; (4) the\nsub-brachycephalic race of Furfooz; (5) the race of Grenelle; (6) the\nrace of Truch\u00e8re. Of these only three (namely, Nos. 1, 2, and 6)\nproperly belong to the palanthropic age. The races of Furfooz[24] and of\nthe upper beds of Grenelle are neanthropic, because they are found with\nthe animal remains of that age, and they resemble in cranial characters\nthe neanthropic peoples.\n\n[24] Noticed later, in Chapter VII.\n\nThe Canstadt and Cro-magnon races resemble each other in being\nlong-headed or dolichocephalic, and in having strong and coarsely-made\nfacial bones, but the Canstadt race has a comparatively low fore-*head\nwith strong superciliary arches, and round eye-sockets. The Cro-magnon\nrace has a brain-case of more than ordinary capacity, a more elevated\nfore-*head, and eye-sockets singularly elongated horizontally. Broca has\nmeasured the cubic contents of the Cro-magnon skull, and gives as the\nresult 1,590 cubic centimetres, or 119 centimetres more than the\naverage of 125 modern Parisian skulls. The Canstadt men were of\nmoderate stature, but strongly built and muscular. The Cro-magnon race\nwas of great stature, some skeletons approaching to seven feet in\nheight, and affording evidence of immense muscular development.\n\n[Illustration: SKULL FROM TRUCH\u00c8RE, SHOWING A PECULIAR PALANTHROPIC TYPE\nALLIED TO NEANTHROPIC RACES (after Quatrefages)]\n\nThe race of Truch\u00e8re is represented by only a single skull; but\nQuatrefages vouches for it as belonging to the age of the mammoth. It is\na well-formed brachycephalic cranium of unusually great internal\ncapacity, and would be regarded anywhere as indicating a race of high\nand refined cerebral endowment. If really of the mammoth age, it may\nhave belonged to a straggler or captive from a higher and more cultured\ntribe, introduced accidentally into a sepulchre of the Cro-magnon\nperiod. It connects itself with the speculation in the preceding pages\nas to the existence of such a race. This skull resembles, as we should\nexpect, the type of the neanthropic men who spread over the earth at the\nbeginning of that later age.\n\n  Table Showing Relations of Later Cenozoic Ages in Europe\n\n  Later cenozoic\n\n       ______________________________________________________________\n      |                 |                       |                    |\n      | Geological      | Geography and Climate |      Fauna         |\n      | Periods         |                       |                    |\n      |_________________|_______________________|____________________|\n      |                 |                       |                    |\n      | Modern or       | The actual climate    | Modern quadrupeds, |\n      | neanthropic     | and geographical      | including          |\n      |                 | arrangements          | domestic animals   |\n      |_________________|_______________________|____________________|\n      |                 |                       |                    |\n      |                 | Cold and dry, with    | Reindeer,          |\n  L C |                 | widely extended       | mammoth (Elephas   |\n  a e |                 | continents. Extension | primigenius),      |\n  t n | Post-glacial or | of glaciers &c.       | hairy rhinoceros   |\n  e o | palanthropic    |                       | (R. tichorhinus)   |\n  r z |                 |                       |                    |\n    o |                 | Warm and moist,       |                    |\n    i |                 | extended continents   | Elephas antiquus   |\n    c |                 |                       | and R. Merkii      |\n      |_________________|_______________________|____________________|\n      |                 |                       |                    |\n      | Pleistocene or  | Glacial period.       | Arctic animals     |\n      | glacial         | Submergence and       | and plants         |\n      |                 | diminished continents |                    |\n      |_________________|_______________________|____________________|\n      |                 |                       |                    |\n      |                 |                       | Elephas            |\n      | Pliocene        | First continental     | meridionalis,      |\n      |                 | period.               | Rhinoceros         |\n      |                 | Mild climate          | leptorhinus, and   |\n      |                 |                       | other extinct      |\n      |_________________|_______________________|____________________|\n       ______________________________________________________________\n      |                 |                       |                    |\n      | Geological      | Geography and Climate |      Fauna         |\n      | Periods         |                       |                    |\n      |_________________|_______________________|____________________|\n      |                 |                       |                    |\n      | Modern or       | So-called of Iron,    | Recent             |\n      | neanthropic     | Bronze, and Polished  | Roman              |\n      |                 | Stone                 | Gaulish            |\n      |                 |                       | Iberian            |\n      |_________________|_______________________|____________________|\n      |                 |                       |                    |\n      |                 |                       | Magdalenian        |\n  L C | Post-glacial or | So-called pal\u00e6olithic | Soloutrian         |\n  a e | palanthropic    | or Age of             | Mousterian         |\n  t n |                 | Chipped Stone         | Chellean           |\n  e o |                 |                       |                    |\n  r z |                 |                       |                    |\n    o |                 |                       |                    |\n    i |                 |                       |                    |\n    c |                 |                       |                    |\n      |_________________|_______________________|____________________|\n      |                 |                                            |\n      | Pleistocene or  |                                            |\n      | glacial         |                                            |\n      |_________________|         No certain trace of Man            |\n      |                 |                                            |\n      | Pliocene        |                                            |\n      |_________________|____________________________________________|\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nEND OF THE PALANTHROPIC AGE\n\n\nThe palanthropic age came to a tragic end, and is somewhat definitely\nseparated from that which succeeded it. This appears from several\nconsiderations which are too often overlooked by writers who have\na prejudice in favour of everything passing imperceptibly and by\nslow degrees into that by which it is followed--an exaggerated\nuniformitarianism beyond that of Lyell, but in harmony with the\nhypothesis of Darwin, to which many anthropologists appear to tie\nthemselves hopelessly.\n\nThree facts are here specially important. The Canstadt and Cro-magnon\nraces are physically different from any modern races, and give place\nat the close of this age to peoples as distinct from them as any now\nexisting, and who, on the other hand, while separated from the\npal\u00e6ocosmic men preceding them, are linked with the races of modern\ntimes. It is no doubt true that occasional and abnormal human skulls may\nto this day be seen on living men which are more or less of the Canstadt\nor Cro-magnon type. These are good evidences of the unity of man\nthrough all the ages, but no race exists having all the peculiarities of\nthese ancient peoples, which thus belong not to a distinct species but\nto a distinct racial variety of man.\n\nSecondly, at the close of the palanthropic age we find a great change in\nland animals--a number of important species hunted by early man having\ndisappeared, and the more meagre modern fauna having come in at once.\nThus it may be affirmed that the land fauna of this primitive time was\ndistinct from that now living. This implies either long time or a great\nphysical break.\n\nThirdly, this change of fauna consists not so much in the introduction\nof new species as in the extinction of old forms, either absolutely or\nlocally; and this agrees with the fact of diminution of land area, since\nit seems to be a law of the geological succession that increasing land\nbrings in new land animals; diminishing land area leads to extinction,\nand not to introduction.\n\nFourthly, in accordance with this we find that, at the close of the\npalanthropic age, the continents of the northern hemisphere experienced\na subsidence from which they have only partially recovered up to the\npresent time, and which introduced the modern geographical and climatal\nfeatures. This appears from raised beaches and beds of rubble, loam and\nloess of modern date overlying the _d\u00e9bris_ of the glacial period and\nholding the remains of post-glacial animals. These are widely spread\nover the whole northern hemisphere, and ascend in some districts to\nhigh levels. An interesting illustration has recently been given by Dr.\nNuesch and M. Boule, in the deposits under a rock-shelter at\nSchweizersbild, near Schaffhausen.[25] These show an overlying deposit\nwith 'neolithic' implements and bones of recent animals, a bed of rubble\nand loam destitute of human remains, and below this a bed containing\nbone implements, worked flints, and traces of cookery of the\npalanthropic period. The whole rests on a bed of rolled pebbles,\nsupposed to be the upper part of the glacial deposits. This shows the\ninterval between the palanthropic and neanthropic periods, and also the\npost-glacial date of man in Switzerland, and it accords with a great\nmany other instances.\n\n[25] _Nouvelles archives des Missions_, &c. vol. iii. Noticed in\n_Natural Science_, 1893.\n\nWere these changes sudden or gradual? Experience has no answer, for no\nsimilar events have occurred in historic times, and though there are\nrecords in the geological history of many mutations in the elevation of\nthe land, we have no information as to their rate of progress, and we\nknow little of their causes. The changes of this kind known to us in\nmodern times are merely local, not general, and in regard to their rate\nare of two kinds. Some are abrupt and accompanied with earthquake\nshocks. These are very local, and usually occur in regions of volcanic\nactivity. Others are so slow and gradual as to be scarcely perceptible,\nand are often of wider distribution. It is evident, however, that these\nslight and local phenomena furnish but little clue to the mutations of\npast periods. These were on a far grander scale and affected vast areas.\nWe have no modern instances of these almost world-wide depressions of\ncontinents under the sea, though we know that these have occurred, one\nof them within the human period, and it is idle to speculate as to their\nrate or duration in the absence of facts. We know pretty certainly,\nhowever, from the gauges of time which can be applied to the close of\nthe glacial period, that this latest subsidence must have occurred\nwithin six thousand years of our time.\n\nWith reference to the particular movement in question, we know that the\nclose of the palanthropic period was accompanied by a movement at least\nequal to the difference between the wide lands of the second continental\nperiod and the shrunken dimensions of the present lands. Besides this we\nfind on the surface of the land modern raised beaches, deposits of loess\nand plateau gravels, intrusions of mud into caves of considerable\nelevation, and evidences, as in Siberia, of large herds of animals\nperishing on elevated lands on which they seem to have taken refuge.[26]\nIn short, no geological fact can be better established than the\npost-glacial subsidence.\n\n[26] Prestwich, 'Evidence of Submergence of Western Europe,' _Trans.\nRoyal Society_, 1893; 'Possible Cause for the Origin of the Tradition of\nthe Flood,' _Trans. Vict. Inst._, 1894; Dawkins, _Journal Anthrop.\nInst._, February 1894. Kingsmill and Skertchly (_Nature_, November 10,\n1892) report the Asiatic loess to be marine, and to extend far upward on\nthe Caspian plain and the Pamirs, so that all Asia must have been\nsubmerged within a very recent period. See also _Fossil Man_, by the\nauthor, 1880.\n\nPutting these facts together, we cannot doubt that the submergence at\nthe close of the palanthropic age was very considerable, and that it was\nfollowed by a partial re-emergence. Further, there is no evidence of any\nserious fractures or folding of the crust taking place at the time,\nthough it is possible that great lava ejections like some of those of\nWestern America may belong to this period. It is therefore allowable to\nsuppose that the cause of submergence may have been either depression of\nthe land, or elevation of the bed of the ocean throwing its waters over\nthe land, or possibly a combination of both. Movements of these kinds\nhave recurred again and again in geological time. Their causes are\nmysterious, but their effects have been of the most stupendous\ncharacter. Fortunately, they occur at rare intervals, and that to which\nwe are now referring is the last of which we have any record, and\ndiffers from all others in having occurred at a time when man was widely\nspread over the world.\n\nThe geological chronometers already referred to inform us that the land\nof the northern hemisphere rose from the great pleistocene submergence\nabout eight thousand to ten thousand years ago, and the second\ncontinental period with its forests and its teeming and widely-extended\nanimal and human life, may have been established within two thousand\nyears of that time, or say six thousand to eight thousand years ago. How\nlong the second continental or palanthropic period continued intact we\ndo not know, but we can scarcely allow it less than two thousand years.\nPerhaps it was considerably longer. Now on historical evidence produced\nby Egypt, Chaldea, and other ancient countries in the Mediterranean\nregion, we can trace the neanthropic age continuously back to, say,\nthree thousand years B.C., or nearly five thousand years in all. Adding\nto this two thousand years for the palanthropic age, we are carried back\nto a time within one thousand years of the earliest we can assign on\ngeological grounds to the termination of the great glacial period.\nTherefore, unless we suppose the last continental subsidence to have\nbegun some time before the close of the palanthropic age, and to have\ncontinued to some degree into the beginning of the neanthropic, we\ncannot assign to it a very long time. That it could not have been sudden\nin the sense of being instantaneous is evident, because in that case\nterrestrial denudation of a stupendous character must have ensued, and\nno animal life except that of mountain tops and elevated table-lands\ncould have escaped its destructive effects, but that it was by no means\nsecular or long-continued is certain.\n\nThus we seem shut up to the conclusion that the close of the\npalanthropic age was marked by great geological vicissitudes of the\ncharacter of submergence, leading primarily to vast destruction of\nanimal life, and secondarily to permanent changes both in geography and\nclimate, under which new conditions the neanthropic age was inaugurated.\nHow this took place we have to inquire in the sequel. In the meantime we\nmay merely remark that since the two principal races of primitive men\nknown to us in Europe seem to have perished, we must infer that\nindividuals of a third race beyond the limits of Europe were destined to\nsurvive, and again to replenish the earth in the new era, and that\npossibly these may be represented by the solitary Truch\u00e8re skull. In the\ncase of many of the more bulky and unwieldy animals inhabiting the\nplains the case was different. They perished, or if any survived the\nsubmergence they were unable to multiply under the new conditions.\n\nDesperate attempts have been made in the interests of extreme\nuniformitarianism to discredit the abrupt change from pal\u00e6ocosmic to\nneocosmic men. It has been supposed that the latter replaced the former\nas conquerors--a most unlikely theory, when their relative powers are\nconsidered. It has been conjectured that as the cold decreased the old\nraces of men followed the reindeer to the north and became Arctic\npeoples. But why did they not rather attack the new animals, which in\nthat case must have come in from the south? It has even been supposed\nthat the Esquimaux may be their descendants; but they are quite\ndifferent in physical characters, and have no nearer resemblance in\ntheir arts than other rude peoples. In opposition to all this we have\nnot only the remarkable change in the races of men and in their animal\nassociates, but when we know that the whole geographical features of our\ncontinents have changed since the palanthropic age, and that not only\nare our continents reduced in size since the continental post-glacial\nperiod, but that there is evidence of re-elevation as well as\nsubsidence, and this within a short period--say eight thousand years\nless the historic period on the one hand and the early palanthropic on\nthe other--it seems impossible to doubt the greatness and suddenness of\nthe physical break that divides the anthropic age into two distinct\nportions. All this may be held to be certainly known as geological fact,\nand it would be folly to overlook it in any discussions as to primitive\nman, or in any comparisons of the evidence afforded by his remains with\nthat of early human history or tradition.\n\nBut if man was a witness of and sufferer in this great catastrophe, and\nif any men survived it, did they preserve no tradition or memory of such\na stupendous event? We may imagine this to be possible. The survivors\nmay have belonged to the rudest and most isolated of the races of men,\nand may have had no means of knowing the extent of the disaster or of\npreserving its memory. On the other hand, they may have attained to a\nsufficient degree of culture to have had some means of perpetuating the\nmemory of great events. If so, we may imagine that the great diluvial\ncataclysm which separates the human or anthropic period into two parts\nmay have left an indelible mark in the history or tradition of mankind.\nWe shall inquire into this in the sequel, but must first consider what\ngeological monuments remain of the early neanthropic age in Europe.[27]\n\n[27] A valuable paper by Dawkins 'On the relation of the Pal\u00e6olithic to\nthe Neolithic Period,' reaches me when correcting the proof of this\nvolume. (Reprint from _Journal of Anthropological Society_, February\n1894.)\n\nIn the meantime I may remark that, if we take the Canstadt people to\nrepresent the ruder tribes of the antediluvian Cainites, the feebler\nfolk of Truch\u00e8re to represent the Sethites, and the giant race of\nCro-magnon and Mentone as the equivalent of the 'mighty men' or Nephelim\nof Genesis who arose from the mixture of the two original stocks, we\nshall have a somewhat exact parallel between the men of the caves and\ngravels and those we have so long been familiar with in the Book of\nGenesis.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE EARLY NEANTHROPIC AGE\n\n\nThere has been much confusion among anthropologists respecting the\ndistinction of this from the preceding age. The Cro-magnon race has been\nclassed as neanthropic, and has been confounded with a very dissimilar\npeople which succeeded it after an interval of some duration. The gap\nbetween the disappearance of the earlier race and the arrival of the\nnewer has thus been overlooked, and no account has been taken of the\ngreat intervening faunal and geographical changes. This has arisen from\nneglecting or being unable to appreciate the geological part of the\nevidence; and the somewhat lamentable result has been that it is\ndifficult for the ordinary reader to arrive at any certainty, in the\nmidst of conflicting statements all based on imperfect data. In these\ncircumstances it will be well to begin this chapter with some examples\nof the relations of these different races.\n\nAt Grenelle, near Paris, on the river Seine, there is a succession of\nold inundation beds of that river, extending from the oldest part of\nthe anthropic to modern times, and furnishing what may be regarded as a\nchronological series for Northern France, as many human remains have\nbeen from time to time deposited on this old eddy of the Seine and\nburied under newer accumulations. Belgrand has shown that in the lowest\ngravels of this deposit the long-headed Canstadt man is alone found.\nImmediately above this occur remains of the Cro-magnon type, and these\nare associated with and overlain by beds holding large stones or erratic\nblocks, a monument perhaps of the physical disturbances closing the\npalanthropic age. Above these the next remains are those of a race of\nmen of smaller stature and with less elongated heads, which we shall\nfind belong to the neanthropic age. Here, as Quatrefages points out, we\nhave a distinct stratigraphical succession, which accords with that in\nother localities.\n\nIf we now turn to England we may select from other examples the\nCresswell caves, so carefully explored by Dawkins and Mello, and in\nwhich we have well-ascertained evidence from fossils as well as from\nsuperposition. Without going into the details as to the several chambers\nand passages in these caverns, we find as the result of the whole the\nfollowing succession in ascending order:\n\n1. White calcareous sand, a deposit from water, but with no animal\nremains.\n\n2. Stiff red clay with blocks of limestone, and in places underlaid by a\nferruginous sand. These beds, of which the red clay is the principal,\ncontain bones of rhinoceros leptorhinus, hippopotamus, bison, bear,\nhyena and fox, but no human remains. Dawkins, however, shows that in\nother caves farther south some rude flint implements show that man had\nalready appeared in England, though he may not have made his way as far\nnorth as Yorkshire.\n\n3. Above this lies a stratum of red sandy cave earth, in which occur the\nbones of the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, the horse, the bison,\nthe bear, and the hyena, but the leptorhine rhinoceros is gone. The\nbones are gnawed by hyenas, and there are rude quartzite implements.\nOver this, and representing the later part of the palanthropic age,\ncorresponding to some of the French, Belgian, and Lebanon caves, are an\nupper cave earth and breccia, rich in 'pal\u00e6olithic' flint implements and\nbones of the animals of the mammoth age.\n\n4. Above this, in the surface soil and disturbed portions of the\nunderlying beds, are remains of the neanthropic period, including twelve\nspecies of modern animals, but with no trace of the great extinct\nquadrupeds. Connected with these were human skulls of the same type\nfound in the ancient burial barrows of England, and belonging to races\nstill extant. The Cresswell caves give no bones of pal\u00e6ocosmic men, but\nthey very well show the succession of the early period of mild climate,\nthe later severe climate, the extinction of the old animals contemporary\nwith the earliest men, and the final succession of modern men and\nanimals to the now insular Britain, which, in the times represented by\nthe beds one, two, and three above mentioned, was a part of the mainland\nof Europe.\n\n[Illustration: FLINT FLAKES OF TWO TYPES FROM PALANTHROPIC AND\nNEANTHROPIC CAVES IN THE LEBANON]\n\nBut perhaps the most interesting views of the succession of early men\nand the gap between the palanthropic and neanthropic periods are\npresented by the Belgian caves explored by Schmerling and Dupont. The\nlatter has excavated more than sixty caverns, and has carefully noted\nthe mode of occurrence of their contents, collecting at the same time a\nvast number of bones and implements, now admirably arranged in the\nmuseum of Brussels. In Belgium the earlier anthropic period has been\ncharacterised as that of the mammoth. The beginning of the neanthropic\nis still a reindeer age, though that animal was apparently becoming\nrare. It existed, as we know, in Central Europe till the time of C\u00e6sar.\n\n[Illustration: RESTORATION OF THE SEPULCHRAL CAVE OF FRONTAL, BELGIUM\n\n(after Dupont)\n\n1. and 2. Gravel and clay of mammoth age. 3. Surface of modern\naccumulation of angular stones and clay. (D) Slab closing the sepulchre.\n(S) Platform for funeral feasts. (F) Hearth. (R) Rock forming the walls\nof the cavern.]\n\nThe caves of Furfooz, and especially that of Frontal, are among the most\ninstructive. Dupont has found that in many caves the older remains of\nthe mammoth age are contained in or covered by a diluvial or inundation\nmud,[28] which seems to be the closing deposit of this age. Now in the\nFrontal cave this mud remained undisturbed and extended out into a\nplatform in front of the cave. The cave itself had been used as a place\nof burial, and as many as sixteen skeletons were found in it, with flint\nimplements, perforated shells, flat pieces of sandstone with sketches of\nfigures scratched on them, and an earthen vase. All these lay above the\noriginal palanthropic mud floor, and belonged to new tribes which\nprobably knew nothing of their predecessors, whose bones were covered by\nthe inundation mud below. On the platform in front of the cave was a\nhearth with the ashes of funeral feasts, and around this were found a\nmultitude of bones of animals, of the modern species of the country. The\npeople who used this cave as a sepulchre had evidently arrived in\nBelgium after the pal\u00e6ocosmic men and the mammoth were not only extinct,\nbut their remains were buried in muddy deposits; though the reindeer\nand even the wild horse still existed, and the time was long before the\ndawn of any authentic history in that part of the world. These men have\nsomewhat shorter heads than the old Cro-magnon race, and they are of\nsmaller stature, and with finer and more delicate features. In these\nrespects they resemble the men of the dolmens and long barrows of France\nand England, and the existing Auvergnats and Basques, and also the Lapps\nof the far north. Dupont observes that their materials for implements\nand ornaments came almost entirely from regions to the southward, and\nhence he infers commerce with tribes in that direction and the existence\nof enemies in the north. I should rather infer that the men of Frontal\nhad immigrated into Belgium from the south, and that they were a small\nand poor outlying tribe of a greater people living south of them. Dupont\nalso remarks on their evident care of the dead, a characteristic of the\nearly neocosmic men, their belief in a future life, and the absence of\nwarlike weapons, whence he infers that they were a mild and pacific\nrace--a conclusion which makes against the idea entertained by some,\nthat they may have displaced the formidable pal\u00e6ocosmic men by conquest.\n\n[28] Sometimes with angular stones--_argile \u00e0 blocaux_.\n\nSimilar illustrations are afforded by the caves and rock-shelters of\nFrance, Switzerland, and Syria, and have convinced many of the ablest\narch\u00e6ologists of the existence of a decided break between the\npalanthropic and neanthropic ages. In such a case also it is to be\nobserved that a few decided, positive facts are of more value than any\nnumber of examples in which, from local circumstances, the succession\nmay be obscure or uncertain.\n\nThe above examples relate to the men of the older neanthropic age, the\nmen of the so-called neolithic or polished stone age of arch\u00e6ologists.\nThese men can be shown to be identical with the oldest populations of\npostdiluvian Europe, peoples whose descendants exist to-day in many\nparts of Western Europe, though they have been more or less displaced or\nmixed with later intrusive races. These people have gone on without any\nphysical cataclysm, or change of fauna, or geographical or climatal\nchanges of any magnitude, into the ages of bronze and iron and of the\nmodern civilisation. Thus, while the pal\u00e6ocosmic men passed away\nabruptly and have left no certain successors, those who succeeded them\npass on without a break into the existing populations of the world.\n\nWe must, however, here guard ourselves from a misconception which has\napparently unconsciously deceived many writers on this subject. It by no\nmeans follows from the facts insisted on above that there are no direct\nlinks of connection between pal\u00e6ocosmic and neocosmic men. The ancestors\nof the latter must have existed through the palanthropic period, and\nwherever they were living they may have had the same characters which\ndistinguish them at a later time, and which persist to this day. There\nwould therefore be nothing contradictory to our general view in finding\nthat the small, fine-featured men who succeeded the giants of the olden\ntime were in some more genial parts of the world extant from the first.\nNay, it may even appear that they were similar to the Truch\u00e8re race, and\nthat still more primitive people whose bones are yet unknown, and who\ninhabited Europe in the early mild period preceding the mammoth age.\nNeither is there anything anomalous in the occasional reappearance of\ncharacters similar to those even of the Canstadt race at the present\ntime, not because any modern men are direct descendants of this race,\nbut because under certain conditions these characters tend to be\nreproduced. Let us put the case conjecturally as follows:\n\nThe original men who peopled the northern continents after the first\nglacial period were of small stature, agile, and well formed, with mild\nand pleasing countenance and heads of the medium (mesitocephalic) type.\nThey were dwellers in a warm climate and subsisted on fruits. As\npopulation increased and men became hunters and fishermen, and wandered\nwidely over the world, a large-boned, coarse-featured, and savage type\nof man arose, such as we find in the older caves and gravels, and\nweapons of kinds not needed in primitive times were invented. In this\nstate of affairs, when the coarser and stronger races had made\nthemselves masters of the world, and had perhaps partially intermixed\nwith the older and more peaceful peoples, a great diluvial catastrophe\noccurred, which swept away the greater part of men. The survivors were\nof the old and unmodified stock, and it was they who repeopled the new\nworld, finding possibly here and there some survivors of the former\npopulation, or themselves locally relapsing into a similar state. In\nthis case all the seeming paradoxes and contradictions which have\nperplexed arch\u00e6ologists would be easily explained. We might even find\noccasional captives of the primitive small race among the interments of\nthe old giants, and we might find new races of superior physical power\narising in the new world and again intruding on the feebler race.\n\nIn closing our notice of this period we may proceed to connect it with\nactual history in the British Islands. When the Romans invaded Britain\nthey found in it two races of men physically very distinct, one of them\nthe aborigines, who had made their way to the island as its first\npopulation after the close of the mammoth age, the others apparently a\nlater intrusion. They are known to English antiquaries from their modes\nof burial as the men of the long and the round barrows or funeral\nmounds. The first of these are beyond doubt the kinsmen of our little\nmen of the Trou de Frontal, in Belgium. They are thus described by\nGreenwell and Taylor[29]:\n\n[29] Greenwell, _British Barrows_; Taylor, _Origin of the Aryans_.\n\nThey were of feeble build, short stature, dark complexion, and somewhat\nlong skull. They buried their dead in long barrows or mounds with\ninterior chambers and passages; some of these are as much as\n400 feet in length, and resemble artificial caves; and there can be no\ndoubt that, as in Belgium, they buried their dead in caves when these\nwere accessible; and the laborious construction of the long barrows when\ncaves failed is an indication of the great importance they attached to\nthe secure and decent sepulture of the dead. No trace of metal is found\nin their barrows, and but little pottery, but it is believed that they\nhad at a very early time domesticated sheep and cattle and practised\nagriculture. These people are now identified with the people of the\nsouth and west of England, called by the Romans Silures. They were the\nbuilders of the cromlechs, dolmens, and other megalithic structures so\ncommon in various parts of the old continent. Their type survives to\nthis day in the small dark people of parts of Wales and the south and\nwest of Ireland, and in parts of the Hebrides. Their physical characters\nconnect them with the primitive populations of the hills of Central\nFrance, with the Basques of the Pyrenees, the Corsicans, the Berbers of\nAfrica, and the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and the term Iberian has\nbeen applied to the whole group. Their language was originally not\nAryan, but Turanian. They represent not merely a new race still\nsurviving, but a distinct advance in practical civilisation over\nthat of the peoples of the palanthropic age, in Europe at least.\n\nAt the time of the Roman conquest this primitive race had been replaced\nin the east of England and south of Scotland by a wholly different\npeople, supposed to be identical with the Celt\u00e6 of the Romans. They\nwere tall, muscular, with broader and shorter heads, fair complexion,\nand light-coloured hair. They buried their dead in round barrows or\nmounds, and seem at a very early period to have possessed bronze, and so\nto have introduced what has been termed the bronze age into Britain. At\nthe time of the Roman invasion, however, they already possessed iron\nweapons. These people were Aryan in speech, allied to the Gauls and\nBelg\u00e6, and the ancestors of the so-called Celtic populations of the\nBritish Islands.\n\n[Illustration: CROMLECH AT FONTANACCIA, CORSICA (after De Mortillet)]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE PALANTHROPIC AGE IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY\n\n\nThe time was when the earlier books of the Hebrew Scriptures stood\nalmost alone in their notices of the creation and antediluvian times,\nand when critics could quietly take for granted that they were\naltogether mythical. This state of things has now passed away from the\nminds of the better informed, and it may be profitable before proceeding\nfarther to glance for a moment at some of the recent corroborations, if\nthey may be so called, of the Bible history from altogether unexpected\nquarters.\n\nIn the first place, there can now be no doubt that the order of\ncreation, as revealed to the author of the first chapter of Genesis,\ncorresponds with the results of astronomical and geological research in\na manner which cannot be accidental.[30] This old document thus stands\nin the position of a prophecy which has been fulfilled in its details.\nBesides this, the discovery of the similar though not identical\nChaldean creation tablets throws a remarkable and interesting side-light\non the whole question. The Chaldean tablets are unquestionably very\nancient, and borrowed from still older documents from which they are\nalleged to have been copied. But they and the Genesis narrative are\nindependent of each other. Neither can have been copied from the other.\nThus there must have been a still more ancient common source of the\nnarrative, and, as I have elsewhere urged,[31] the greater simplicity\nand monotheistic character of the Hebrew document entitle it to the palm\nof the higher antiquity.\n\n[30] For evidence of this I may be permitted to refer to my work, _The\nOrigin of the World_.\n\n[31] _Modern Science in Bible Lands._\n\nWith reference to the antediluvian age and the Deluge, while the Bible\nis here only in accord with almost universal tradition, and this in\nreference to an event which if it occurred at all must have fixed itself\nin the memory of the survivors, it is in remarkable accordance with very\nancient Chaldean writings commemorative of the same event. Some\nprincipal points of this accordance are the following. The Chaldean\naccount implies that the anger of the gods, or some of them, against an\nevil race of men was the cause of the catastrophe. It gives it a\nuniversal character, so far as the sphere of observation extended. It\nrepresents the survivors as saved in a ship or ark. It represents\nHasisadra, its Noah, as sending out birds to ascertain the subsidence of\nthe waters. In all these points and many others the Chaldean account\nagrees with the Biblical in representing antediluvian men, or some of\nthem, as civilised, possessing domestic animals, and competent to\nconstruct large ships.\n\nWhen we leave the Deluge and come to the postdiluvian or neanthropic\nperiod, similar coincidences occur. The foundation of a primitive\nCushite or Akkadian kingdom in the Euphratean valley, the dispersion of\nmen according to their families and their languages, the early kingdoms\ncontemporary with Abraham, mentioned in the narrative of his campaign to\nrecover the captives taken from the cities of the plain, the extremely\nearly use of the arrow-headed characters in Asia, of the hieroglyphic\nwriting in Egypt, and of a proto-Ph\u0153nician or early Hebrew alphabet\namong the Mineans of ancient Arabia, tend at once to vindicate the Bible\nhistory, and to show how at a very early period this history may have\nbeen rendered permanent in written documents. On all these grounds\nscientific arch\u00e6ologists are beginning to attach more value than\nformerly to the Hebrew annals, and to recognise them as true historical\naccounts of the times to which they relate.\n\nIt may seem rash to make such a statement at a time when it is well\nknown that many divines of repute avow themselves as believers in the\ntheory that the earlier Biblical books are of comparatively late\ncomposition. But Science will have her way in a matter of this kind,\nwhatever literature or criticism may say, and she is beginning strongly\nto lift her voice against the destructive criticism of the Pentateuch.\nIn a recent article, Professor Sayce, one of the best-informed experts\nin these subjects, uses the following language:\n\n'Naturally, the \"higher criticism\" is disinclined to see its assumptions\nswept away along with the conclusions which are based upon them, and to\nsit humbly at the feet of the newer science. At first, the results of\nEgyptian or Assyrian research were ignored; then they were reluctantly\nadmitted, so far as they did not clash with the preconceived opinions of\nthe \"higher\" critics. It was urged, unfortunately with too much justice,\nthat the decipherers were not, as a rule, trained critics, and that in\nthe enthusiasm of research they often announced discoveries which proved\nto be false or only partially correct. But it must be remembered, on the\nother side, that this charge applies with equal force to all progressive\nstudies, not excluding the \"higher criticism\" itself.\n\n'The time is now come for confronting the conclusions of the \"higher\ncriticism,\" so far as it applies to the books of the Old Testament, with\nthe ascertained results of modern Oriental research. The amount of\ncertain knowledge now possessed by the Egyptologist and Assyriologist\nwould be surprising to those who are not specialists in these branches\nof study, while the discovery of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets has poured a\nflood of light upon the ancient world, which is at once startling and\nrevolutionary. As in the case of Greek history, so too in that of\nIsraelitish history, the period of critical demolition is at an end, and\nit is time for the arch\u00e6ologist to reconstruct the fallen edifice.\n\n'But the very word \"reconstruct\" implies that what is built again will\nnot be exactly that which existed before. It implies that the work of\nthe \"higher criticism\" has not been in vain; on the contrary, the work\nit has performed has been a very needful and important one, and in its\nown sphere has helped us to the discovery of the truth. Egyptian or\nAssyrian research has not corroborated every historical statement which\nwe find in the Old Testament, any more than classical arch\u00e6ology has\ncorroborated every statement which we find in the Greek writers; what it\nhas done has been to show that the extreme scepticism of modern\ncriticism is not justified, that the materials on which the history of\nIsrael has been based may, and probably do, go back to an early date,\nand that much which the \"higher\" critics have declared to be mythical\nand impossible was really possible and true.'\n\nIn point of fact a much stronger position might be held in favour of\nGenesis, and we shall find in comparing it with the monuments of the\npalanthropic and early neanthropic ages that its statements vindicate\nthemselves as derived from original contemporary documents, which were\nunder no obligations to the literature or philosophy of those later\ntimes, to which they have been relegated by some of the critics.\n\nLet us inquire a little more in detail into the general features of\nthese early historic notices.\n\nFor the purposes of this inquiry we may content ourselves with the\nconsideration of the ancient Hebrew documents incorporated in the Book\nof Genesis, and the remains which have been preserved of the old\nChaldean literature. Both of these represent an antediluvian period of\nlong duration.[32] Both refer the primitive seats of population to the\nEuphratean region of Western Asia. Both terminate the antediluvian age\nwith a great diluvial catastrophe. These are sufficient points of\ngeneral agreement to make it probable that both originated in one\nfundamental history, or at least were based on attempts to describe the\nsame events. Otherwise there are great differences. The Chaldean\naccounts have a prolix iteration, which makes it probable that they were\nprepared for popular and liturgic use, and may not fairly represent the\noriginal documents in possession of the priestly class. They also\nnaturally introduce all the _personnel_ of the Chaldean pantheon, and as\nthis must have been a thing of gradual growth it gives them an air of\nrecency, though we know that they are very old. The Hebrew version, on\nthe other hand, is monotheistic, and has an aspect of severe simplicity\nin striking contrast to the florid and popular Chaldean version.\n\n[32] Hommel has proved (_Journal of the Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_,\n1893), what has always been suspected, that the ten patriarchs of\nBerosus are the same with those of the Sethite line in Genesis.\n\nWe may first notice what history can tell of the palanthropic age,\nsupposing this to be the same with that historically known as\nantediluvian. The account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis is\naltogether general, and has no local colouring. It evidently refers to\nthe whole history of the making of the earth. The second chapter, on the\nother hand, begins at verse 4 the special history of man, and opens with\na picture which is not, as some have rashly supposed, a repetition of\nthe previous general account of creation, and still less contradictory\nto it, but a statement that immediately before the introduction of man\nthe earth had been in a desolate and comparatively untenanted state,\nthat state to which we know it had been reduced by the glacial cold and\nsubmergence.\n\nThus the two accounts of the creation of man, that in which he appears\nin his chronological position in the general development, and that in\nwhich he takes a first place, as introductory to his special history,\nare not contradictory, but complementary to each other; and the latter\nrefers wholly to man and the creatures contemporary with him in the\npalanthropic age. It is in accordance with this, and no doubt intended\nby the editor to mark this distinction, that the name Elohim is used in\nthe general narrative, and Jehovah Elohim in the special one. The\nfailure of so many critics to notice this distinction, which must have\nbeen so plain to the primitive historian himself, is a marked\nillustration of the blindness of certain nineteenth-century savants, so\nfull of their own special knowledge, yet so careless of science and\ncommon sense.\n\nIt would even seem that this distinction appeared in the Chaldean\nGenesis as well; for fragments of what has been called a second Chaldean\nGenesis have been found which seem to correspond with the statements of\nthe second chapter of Genesis.\n\nThe following is an extract from this second Chaldean or Akkadian\nGenesis as translated by Pinches:[33]\n\n     1 The glorious house, the house of the gods, in a glorious place\n     had not been made;\n\n     2 A plant had not been brought forth, a tree had not been created;\n\n     3 A brick had not been laid, a beam had not been shaped;\n\n     4 A house had not been built, a city had not been constructed;\n\n     5 A city had not been made, a foundation had not been made\n     glorious;\n\n     6 Niffer had not been built, \u00ca-kura had not been constructed;\n\n     7 Erech had not been built, \u00ca-ana had not been constructed;\n\n     8 The Abyss had not been made, \u00ca-ridu had not been constructed;\n\n     9 (As for) the glorious house, the house of the gods, its seat had\n     not been made--\n\n     10 The whole of the lands were sea.\n\n[33] _Expository Times_, December 1892\n\nThis may be supposed to correspond with the Hebrew verses following:\n\n     And no plant of the field was yet in the earth.\n\n     And no herb of the field had yet sprung up.\n\n     For Jahveh Elohim had not caused it to rain on the earth.\n\n     And there was not a man to till (irrigate) the ground.\n\n     And there went up a vapour from the earth, and watered the surface\n     of the ground.\n\nThis is the Hebrew idea of the condition of the great Mesopotamian plain\nafter the pleistocene submergence, and before the appearance of man. The\nChaldean version refers to the same region, but is more elaborate and\nartificial, and brings in the historic cities of a later time. This\ndifference alone would induce us to suppose that the Hebrew record may\nbe a better guide for our present comparison.\n\nThe Hebrew writer in the first place gives us to understand that a\nperiod of comparative desolation preceded the appearance of man, a great\nwinter of destruction preparatory to a returning spring. He then\nproceeds to localise primeval man by placing him in Eden, the Idinu of\nthe Chaldean accounts, which we also recognise by the geographical\nindications of the Euphrates and Tigris as its rivers, with two\ncompanion streams which can scarcely be other than the Karun and the\nKerkhat. Thus the Bible and the Chaldean account agree in their locality\nfor the advent of man, for Idinu was the ancient name of the plain of\nBabylonia. It has been objected to this locality that much of this\nregion is low and swampy, and has only recently become land by the\nencroachment of the rivers on the head of the Persian Gulf. But if our\nBiblical authority really refers to palanthropic man, we must bear in\nmind that in the post-glacial period the continents were higher than\nnow, and the Babylonian plain must have been a dry and elevated\ndistrict, in all probability forest-clad. We must also bear in mind that\nEden was a region of country, and that the 'garden' or selected spot\n'eastward in Eden' may have been some rich wooded island surrounded by\nthe river streams, and producing all fruits pleasant to the taste and\ngood for food. In any case the modern objections to the site are based\non entire ignorance of its geological history, and only serve to show\nhow much better informed the ancient writer was as to antediluvian\ngeography than his modern critics.[34]\n\n[34] See, for full discussion of this, _Modern Science in Bible Lands_,\nby the author.\n\nIt is scarcely necessary to say that this Biblical environment of\nprimitive man corresponds with the requirements of the case. In a genial\nclimate and sheltered position, and supplied with abundance of food, the\nfirst men would have the conditions necessary for comfortable existence\nand for multiplying in numbers.\n\nWe have also in the description of one of the rivers of Eden a hint as\nto a few of the wants of early man beyond mere food and shelter. We are\ntold that the district traversed by this river produced gold, bedolach,\nand the shoham stone. I have elsewhere shown that this river must be the\nKarun, draining the Luristan mountains, and that the productions\nindicated must have been 'native gold and silver, wampum beads, and jade\nand similar stones suitable for implements.'[35] Thus we have here a\npicture which may well represent the origin and early condition of our\npal\u00e6ocosmic men. But the parallel does not end here.\n\n[35] _Modern Science in Bible Lands._\n\nAccording to the history, man falls, and is expelled from Eden, is\nclothed with skins, and becomes an eater of animal food. Next we find\nmurderous violence, and a consequent separation of the primitive people\ninto two tribes, one of which migrates to a distance from the other and\nadopts different modes of life. Finally, we have a mixture of the two\nraces, leading to a powerful and terrible race of half-breeds, or metis,\nwho filled the earth with violence.[36]\n\n[36] Genesis vi. 1-6.\n\n[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF\nTHE SITE OF EDEN AS DESCRIBED IN GENESIS]\n\nIn one point only have we reason to doubt whether this old history\nfairly represents the palanthropic age. It notes the invention of\nmusical instruments, the use of metals, the domestication of animals as\nalready existing in the antediluvian period. Of these we have little or\nno arch\u00e6ological evidence. The only musical instrument of this period\nknown is a whistle made of one of the bones of a deer's foot, and\ncapable of sounding a tetrachord or four notes, and we have no certain\nevidence of metals or domesticated animals. We must bear in mind that\nthere may have been more civilised races than those of the Cro-magnon\ntype, and that the latter evince an artistic skill which if it had any\nscope for development may have led to great results. The native metals\nmust have been known to man from the first, though they must have been\nrare or only locally common; and many semi-barbarous nations of later\ntimes show us that it is only a short step from the knowledge of native\nmetals to the art of metallurgy, in so far as it consists in treating\nthose ores that in weight and metallic lustre most resemble the metals\nthemselves. It is also deserving of notice that no other hypothesis than\nthat of antediluvian civilisation can account for the fact that in the\ndawn of postdiluvian history we find the dwellers by the Euphrates and\nthe Nile already practising so many of the arts of civilised life. In\nconnection with this we may place the early dawn of literature. Without\ninsisting on the documents which the Chaldean Noah, Hasisadra, is said\nto have hid at Sippara before the Deluge, we have the known fact that in\nthe earliest dawn of postdiluvian history the art of writing was known\nin Chaldea and in Egypt. This at once testifies to antediluvian culture,\nand shows that the means existed to record important events.\n\nThere is, perhaps, no one of the vagaries now current under the much\nabused name of evolution more opposed to facts, whether physical or\nhistorical than the notion that, because 3000 years B.C. we have\nevidence of an advanced civilisation in Chaldea and in Egypt, this must\nhave been preceded by a long and uninterrupted progress through many\nthousands of years from a savage state. Two facts alone are sufficient\nto show the folly of such a supposition. First, the intervention of that\ngreat physical catastrophe which separates the palanthropic and\nneanthropic periods; and secondly, the testimony of history in favour of\nthe arts of civilisation originating with great inventors, and not by\nany slow and gradual process of evolution. According to all history,\nsacred and profane, many such inventors existed even in the palanthropic\nand early neanthropic ages, and transmitted their arts in an advanced\nstate to later times. The Book of Genesis testifies to this in its\nnotices of Tubal Cain and Jubal; and the monuments of Chaldea and Egypt\nshow that metallurgy, sculpture, and architecture were as far advanced\nat the very dawn of history as in any later period. It is true that\nGenesis represents its early inventors as mere men, albeit 'sons of\nGod,' while they often appear as gods or demi-gods in the early history\nof the heathen nations; but the fact remains that then, as now, the rare\nappearance of God-given inventive genius is the sole cause of the\ngreater advances in art and civilisation. Spontaneous development may\nproduce socialistic trades' unions or Chinese stagnation, but great\ngifts, whether of prophecy, of song, of scientific insight, or of\ninventive power, are the inspiration of the Almighty.\n\nWe have in the closing part of the Bible story of the antediluvian age\neven an intimation of the deterioration of climate and means of\nsubsistence towards the end of the period. Lamech, we are told, named\nhis son Noah--rest or comfort--in the hope that by his means he should\nbe comforted, because of the ground which the Lord had cursed. That\ncurse provoked by the sons of man he may have recognised as fulfilled in\nthe gradual deterioration of the climate toward the close of the\npalanthropic age. There are here surely some curious coincidences which\nmight be followed farther, did space permit.\n\nWe now come to the close of the whole in the Deluge; and as this has\nbeen made in our own time the subject of much discussion, and as it\ncontains within itself the whole kernel of the subject, it merits a\nseparate treatment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE DELUGE OF NOAH\n\n\nTo the older men of this generation, who have followed the changes of\nscientific and historical opinion, the story of the Deluge, old though\nit is, has passed through a variety of phases like the changes of a\nkaleidoscope, and which may afford an instructive illustration of the\nmodifications of belief in other, and some of them to us more important,\nmatters, whether of history or of religion, which have presented\nthemselves in like varied aspects, and may be variously viewed in the\nfuture.\n\nAs children we listened with awe and wonder to the story of the wicked\nantediluvians, and of their terrible fate and the salvation of righteous\nNoah, and received a deep and abiding impression of the enormity of\nmoral evil and of the just retribution of the Great Ruler of the\nUniverse. A little later, though the idea that all the fossil remains\nimbedded in the rocks are memorials of the Deluge had passed away from\nthe minds of the better informed, we read with interest the wonderful\nrevelations of the bone-caves described by Buckland, and felt that the\nantediluvian age had become a scientific reality. But later still all\nthis seemed to pass away like a dream. Under the guidance of Lyell we\nlearned that even the caves and gravels must be of greater age than the\nhistorical Deluge, and that the remains of men and animals contained in\nthem must have belonged to far-off \u00e6ons, antedating perhaps even the\nBiblical creation of man, while the historical Deluge, if it ever\noccurred, must have been an affair so small and local that it had left\nno traces on the rocks of the earth. At the same time Biblical critics\nwere busy with the narrative itself, showing that it could be decomposed\ninto different documents, that it bore traces of a very recent origin,\nthat it was unhistorical, and to be relegated to the same category with\nthe fairy-tales of our infancy. Again, however, the kaleidoscope turns,\nand the later researches of geology into the physical and human history\nof the more recent deposits of the earth's crust, the discoveries of\nancient Assyrian or Chaldean records of the Deluge, and the comparison\nof these with the ancient history of other nations, rehabilitate the old\nstory; and as we study the new facts respecting the so-called\npal\u00e6olithic and neolithic men, the clay tablets recovered from the\nlibraries of Nineveh by George Smith, the calculations of Prestwich and\nothers respecting the recency of the glacial period, and the historical\ngatherings of Lenormant, we find ourselves drifting back to the faith\nof our childhood, or may congratulate ourselves on having adhered to it\nall along, even when the current of opinion tended strongly to turn us\naway.\n\nIn illustration of the present aspects of the question I make two\nextracts, one from Lenormant's _Beginnings of History_, another from a\nrecent work of my own.\n\n'We are,' says Lenormant, 'in a position to affirm that the account of\nthe Deluge is a universal tradition in all branches of the human family,\nwith the sole exception of the black race, and a tradition every-*where\nso exact and so concordant cannot possibly be referred to an imaginary\nmyth. No religious or cosmogonic myth possesses this character of\nuniversality. It must necessarily be the reminiscence of an actual and\nterrible event, which made so powerful an impression upon the\nimaginations of the first parents of our species that their descendants\ncould never forget it. This cataclysm took place near the primitive\ncradle of mankind, and previous to the separation of the families from\nwhom the principal races were to descend, for it would be altogether\ncontrary to probability and to the laws of sound criticism to admit that\nlocal phenomena exactly similar in character could have been reproduced\nat so many different points on the globe as would enable one to explain\nthese universal traditions, or that these traditions should always have\nassumed an identical form, combined with circumstances which need not\nnecessarily have suggested themselves to the mind in such a\nconnection.'[37]\n\n[37] _Les Origines de l'Histoire._ Brown's translation.\n\nOn the geological side, the following may be accepted as a summary of\nfacts:[38]\n\n[38] _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, 1888, pp. 244, 245, 251, 252.\n\n'If the earliest men were those of the river gravels and caves, men of\nthe mammoth age or of the pal\u00e6olithic or pal\u00e6ocosmic period, we can form\nsome definite ideas as to their possible antiquity. They colonised the\ncontinents immediately after the elevation of the land from the great\nsubsidence which closed the pleistocene or glacial period, or in what\nhas been called the \"continental\" period of the post-glacial age,\nbecause the new lands then raised out of the sea exceeded in extent\nthose which we now have. We have some measures of the date of this great\ncontinental elevation. Many years ago, Sir Charles Lyell used the\nrecession of the Falls of Niagara as a chronometer, estimating their\ncutting power as equal to one foot per annum. He calculated the\nbeginning of the process, which dates from the post-glacial elevation,\nto be about thirty thousand years ago. More recent surveys have shown\nthat the rate is three times as great as that estimated by Lyell, and\nalso that a considerable part of the gorge was merely cleaned out by the\nriver since the pleistocene age. In this way the age of the Niagara\ngorge becomes reduced to perhaps seven or eight thousand years. Other\nindications of similar bearing are found both in Europe and America,\nand lead to the belief that it is physically impossible that man could\nhave colonised the northern hemisphere at an earlier date. These facts\nrender necessary an entire revision of the calculations based on the\ngrowth of stalagmite in caves, and other uncertain data which have been\nheld to indicate a greater lapse of time.\n\n'If we identify the antediluvians of Genesis with the oldest men known\nto geological and arch\u00e6ological science, the parallelism is somewhat\nmarked in physical characteristics and habits of life, and also in their\napparently sudden and tragical disappearance from Europe and Western\nAsia, along with several of the large mammalia which were their\ncontemporaries. If the Deluge is to be accepted as historical, and if a\nsimilar great break interrupts the geological history of man, separating\nextinct races from those which still survive, why may we not correlate\nthe two? If the Deluge was misused in the early history of geology, by\nemploying it to account for changes which took place long before the\nadvent of man, this should not cause us to neglect its legitimate uses,\nwith reference to the early human period. It is evident that if this\ncorrelation be accepted as probable, it must modify many views now held\nas to the antiquity of man. In that case the modern gravels and silts,\nspread over the plateaus between the river valleys, will be accounted\nfor, not by any greater overflow of the existing streams, but by the\nabnormal action of currents of water diluvial in their character.\nFurther, since the historical Deluge must have been of very limited\nduration, the physical changes separating the deposits containing the\nremains of pal\u00e6ocosmic men from those of later date would in like manner\nbe accounted for, not by the slow processes imagined by extreme\nuniformitarians, but by causes of a more abrupt and cataclysmic\ncharacter.'[39]\n\n[39] See also Howorth, _The Mammoth and the Flood_, and papers by\nProfessor Prestwich in _Journal Geol. Society_ and _Trans. Royal\nSociety_ and by Andrews, Winchell, and others in America.\n\nWe may proceed to inquire as to whether the position which we have now\nreached is likely to be permanent, or may represent merely one shifting\nphase of opinion. For this purpose we may formulate these conclusions in\na few general statements, merely referring to the evidence on which they\nare based, as any complete discussion of this would necessarily be\nimpossible within the limits of this work. We may first summarise the\npresent position of the matter as indicated by historical and scientific\nresearch, altogether independently of the Bible.[40]\n\n[40] See articles by the author in _The Contemporary Review_, December\n1889, and in _The Magazine of Christian Literature_, October 1890.\n\n1. The recent discovery of the Chaldean deluge tablets has again\ndirected attention to the statements of Berosus respecting the\nBabylonian tradition of a great flood, and these statements are found to\nbe borne out in the main by the contents of the tablets. There is thus a\ntwofold testimony as to the occurrence of a deluge in that Babylonian\nplain which the Old Testament history represents as the earliest seat of\nantediluvian man. As Lenormant has well shown, the tradition exists in\nthe ancient literature of India, Persia, Ph\u0153nicia, Phrygia, and Greece,\nand can be recognised in the traditions of Northern and Western Europe\nand of America, while the Egyptians had a similar account of the\ndestruction of men, but apparently not by water, though their idea\nof a submerged continent of Atlantis probably had reference to the\nantediluvian world. Thus we find this story widely spread over the\nearth, and possessed by members of all the leading divisions of mankind.\nThis does not necessarily prove the universality of the Deluge, though\nevery distinct people naturally refers it to its own country. It shows,\nhowever, the existence of some very early common source of the tradition,\nand the variations are not more than were to have been expected in the\ndifferent of transmission.\n\n2. Parallel with this historical evidence lies the result of geological\nand arch\u00e6ological research, which has revealed to us the remains and\nworks of prehistoric men, racially distinct from those of modern times,\nand who inhabited the earth at a period when its animal population was\nto a great extent distinct from that at present existing, and when its\nphysical condition was also in many respects different. Thus in Europe\nand Asia, and to some extent also in America, we have evidence that the\npresent races of men were preceded by others which have passed away, and\nthis at the same time with many important species of land animals, once\nthe contemporaries of man, but now known only as fossils. These ancient\nmen are those called by geologists later pleistocene, or post-glacial,\nor the men of the cave and gravel deposits, or of the age of the\nmammoth, and who have been designated by arch\u00e6ologists pal\u00e6olithic men,\nor, more properly, pal\u00e6ocosmic men, since the character of their stone\nimplements is only one not very important feature of their history, and\nimplements of the pal\u00e6olithic type have been used in all periods, and\nindeed are still used in some places.\n\n3. The prevalence among geologists of an exaggerated and unreasonable\nuniformitarianism, which refused to allow sufficient prominence to\nsudden cataclysms arising from the slow accumulation of natural forces,\nand which was a natural reaction from the convulsive geology of an\nearlier period, has caused the idea to be generally entertained that the\nage of pal\u00e6ocosmic men was of vast duration, and passed only by slow\ngradations and a gradual transition into the new conditions of the\nmodern period. This view long was, and still is, an obstacle to any\nrational correlation of the geological and traditional history of man.\nRecently, however, new views have been forced on geologists, and have\nled many of the most sagacious observers and reasoners to see that the\npalanthropic period is much nearer to us than we had imagined. The\narguments for this I have referred to in previous pages, and need not\nreiterate them, here. A few leading points may, however, be noted. One\nof these is the small amount of physical or organic change which has\noccurred since the close of the palanthropic period. Another is the more\nrapid rate of erosion and deposition by rivers in the modern period than\nhad previously been supposed. Another is the striking fact that a large\nnumber of mammals, like the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, seem to have\nperished simultaneously with the pal\u00e6ocosmic men, and this by some\nsudden catastrophe.[41] It has also been shown by Pictet and Dawkins\nthat all the extant mammals of Europe already existed in the\npost-glacial age, but along with many others now altogether or locally\nextinct. Thus there seems to have been the removal over the whole\nnorthern hemisphere of a number of the largest mammals, while a selected\nnumber survived and no additions were made. Again, while at one time it\nwas supposed that the remains of pal\u00e6ocosmic man and his contemporaries\nwere confined to caverns and river alluvia, it is now known that they\noccur also on high plateaus and water-sheds, in beds of gravel and silt\nwhich must have been deposited there under conditions of submergence and\nsomewhat active current drift, perhaps in some cases aided by floating\nice.[42] Lastly, while, as must naturally be the case, in some places\nthe remains of ancient and more modern men are mixed, or seem to pass\ninto each other, in others, as in the Swiss, Belgian and Lebanon caves\nand in the superficial deposits, there is a distinct separation,\nimplying an interval accompanied by physical change between the time of\nthe earlier and later men.\n\n[41] Howorth, _The Mammoth and the Flood_.\n\n[42] Prestwich on deposits at Ightham, Kent, _Journal Geological\nSociety_, May 1889.\n\nSuch considerations as these, the force of which is most strongly felt\nby those best acquainted with the methods of investigation employed by\ngeologists and arch\u00e6ologists, are forcing us to conclude: (1) That there\nare indicated in the latest geological formations two distinct human\nperiods, an earlier and a later, characterised by differences of faun\u00e6\nand of physical conditions, as well as by distinct races of men. (2)\nThat these two periods are separated by a somewhat rapid physical change\nof the nature of submergence, or by a series of changes locally sudden\nand generally not long-continued. (3) That it is not improbable that\nthis greatest of all revolutions in human affairs may be the same that\nhas so impressed itself on the memory of the survivors as to form the\nbasis of all the traditions and historical accounts of the Deluge.\n\nThis being the state of the case, it becomes expedient to review our\nideas of the ancient Hebrew records, from which our early, and perhaps\ncrude, impressions of this event were derived, and to ascertain how much\nof our notions of the Deluge of Genesis may be fairly deduced from the\nrecord itself, and how much may be due to more or less correct\ninterpretations, or to our own fancy. In connection with this we may\nalso be able to obtain some guidance as to the value to be attached to\nthe Hebrew document as a veritable and primitive record of the great\ncatastrophe.\n\nThe key to the understanding of the early human history of Genesis lies\nin the story of the fall of man, and its sequel in the murder of Abel by\nhis brother Cain, the beginning of that reign of violence which endures\neven to this day. From this arose the first division of the human race\ninto hostile clans or tribes, the races of Cain and Seth, on which\nhinges the history, characteristics and fate of antediluvian man; and,\nas we shall see in the sequel, from this arose profound differences in\nreligious beliefs, which have tinged the theology and superstitions of\nall subsequent times. Of course, in making this statement I refer to the\nhistory given in Genesis, without special reference to its intrinsic\ntruth or credibility, but merely in relation to its interpretation in\nharmony with its own statements.\n\nIt is further evident that this tragic event must have occurred in that\nTigro-Euphratean region which was the Biblical site of Eden[43] and that\nwhile the Sethite race presumably occupied the original home of Adam,\nand adhered to that form of religion which is expressed in the worship\nof Jahveh, the coming Redeemer and the expected 'Seed of the Woman,' the\nother race spread itself more widely, probably attained to a higher\ncivilisation, in so far as art is concerned, in some of its divisions,\nand sank to a deeper barbarism in others, while it retained the original\nworship of God the Creator (Elohim). Hence the Sethite race is\ndesignated as the sons of Adam (Beni ha Adam), the true and legitimate\nchildren of the first man, and the Cainites as Beni Elohim, or sons of\nGod.[44] The mixture of these races produced the godless, heaven-defying\nNephelim, the Titans of the Old Testament, whose wickedness brought on\nthe diluvial catastrophe. These half-breeds of the antediluvian time\nwere in all probability the best developed, physically and perhaps\nmentally, of the men of their period; and but for the Deluge they might\nhave become masters of the world.\n\n[43] _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, chap. iv.\n\n[44] That this is the true meaning of the expressions in Genesis vi. I\ncannot doubt. See discussion of the subject in the work cited in\nprevious note.\n\nThis question of different races and religions before the Flood is,\nhowever, deserving of a little farther elucidation. The names Elohim and\nJahveh are used conjointly throughout the Book of Genesis except in its\nfirst chapter, and their mode of occurrence cannot be explained merely\non the theory of two documents pieced together by an editor. It has a\ndeeper significance than this, and one which indicates a radical\ndiversity between Elohists and Jahvists even in this early period. In\nthe earliest part of the human history, as distinguished from the\ngeneral record of creation, the two names are united in the compound\nJahveh-Elohim, but immediately after the fall Eve is represented as\nattributing to, or identifying with, Jahveh alone the birth of her\neldest son--'I have produced a man, the Jahveh,' and which may mean that\nshe supposed Cain to be the promised manifestation of God as the\nRedeemer. Accordingly Cain and Abel are represented as offering\nsacrifice to Jahveh, and yet it is said in a verse which must be a part\nof the same document, that it was not till the time of Enos, a grandson\nof Adam, that men began to invoke the name of Jahveh. It would seem also\nthat this invocation of Jahveh was peculiar to the Sethites, and that\nthe Cainites were still worshippers of Elohim, the God of nature and\ncreation, a fact which perhaps has relation to the so-called physical\nreligion of some ancient peoples. Hence their title of Beni ha Elohim.\nThus the division between the Cainite and Sethite races early became\naccentuated by a sectarian distinction as well. We may imagine that the\nCainites, worshipping God as Creator, and ignoring that doctrine of a\nRedeemer which seemed confined to the rival race of Seth, were the\ndeists of their time, and held a position which might, according\nto culture and circumstances, degenerate into a polytheistic\nnature-worship, or harden into an absolute materialism. On the other\nhand, the Sethites, recognised by the author of Genesis as the orthodox\ndescendants of Adam, and invoking Jahveh, held to the promise of a\ncoming Saviour, and to a deliverance from the effects of the Fall to be\nachieved by His means.\n\nIt is clear that, from the point of view of the author of Genesis, the\nchosen seed of Seth should have maintained their separation from a\nwicked world. Their failure to do this involves them in the wrath of\nJahveh and renders the destruction of mankind necessary, and in this the\nwhole Godhead under its combined aspects of Elohim and Jahveh takes a\npart. A similar view has caused the Chaldean narrator to invoke the aid\nof all the gods in his pantheon to effect the destruction of man.\n\nThese considerations farther throw light on the double character of the\nDeluge narrative in Genesis, which has induced those ingenious scholars\nwho occupy themselves with analysis or disintegration of the Pentateuch\nto affirm two narratives, one Elohist and one Jahvist.[45] Whatever\nvalue may attach to this hypothesis, it is evident that if the history\nis thus made up of two documents it gains in value, since this would\nimply that the editor had at his disposal two chronicles embodying the\nobservations of two narrators, possibly of different sects, if these\ndifferences were perpetuated in the postdiluvian world; and farther,\nthat he is enabled to affirm that the catastrophe affected both the\ngreat races of men. It farther would imply that these early documents\nwere used by the writer to produce his combined narrative almost without\nchange of diction, so that they remain in their original form of the\nalleged testimony of eye-witnesses, a peculiarity which attaches also to\nthe Chaldean version, as this purports to be in the form given by\nHasisadra, the Chaldean Noah, himself.[46]\n\n[45] See, for a very clear statement of these views, Professor Green in\n_Hebraica_, January 1889, along with Dr. Harper's _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of the\nPentateuchal criticism in the previous number.\n\n[46] Translation of G. Smith and others. With reference to the\npreservation of this and the Hebrew narrative in writing, we should bear\nin mind that writing was an art well known in Chaldea and Egypt\nimmediately after the Deluge, or at least between 2000 and 3000 B.C.,\nand that the Chaldean narrator speaks of documents hidden by Noah at\nSippara before the Deluge.\n\nLet us now inquire into the physical aspects of the Deluge, as they are\nsaid to have presented themselves to the ancient witness or witnesses to\nwhom we owe the Biblical account of the catastrophe, and endeavour to\nascertain if they have any agreement with the conditions of the great\npost-glacial Deluge of geology. Let it be observed here that we are\ndealing not with prehistoric events but with a written history, supposed\nby some to have been compiled from two contemporary documents, and\ncorroborated by the testimony of the ancient Chaldean tablets copied by\nthe scribes of Assurbanipal, apparently from different originals,\npreserved in very ancient Chaldean temples.\n\nThe preparation of an ark or ship, and the accommodation therein, not\nonly of Noah and his family, but of a certain number of animals, is a\nfeature in which most Deluge narratives agree. This implies a\nconsiderable advance in the arts of construction and navigation, but not\nmore than we have a right to infer from the perfection of these arts in\nearly postdiluvian times, when it can scarcely be supposed that the new\ncommunities of men had fully regained the position of their ancestors\nbefore the destruction caused by the great Flood. Lenormant, however,\nremarks here:\n\n'The Biblical narrative bears the stamp of an inland nation, ignorant of\nthings appertaining to navigation. In Genesis the name of the ark,\nT\u00eab\u00e2h, signifies \"chest,\" and not \"vessel\"; and there is nothing said\nabout launching the ark on the water; no mention either of the sea, or\nof navigation, or any pilot. In the Epopee of Uruk, on the other hand,\neverything indicates that it was composed among a maritime people; each\ncircumstance reflects the manners and customs of the dwellers on the\nshores of the Persian Gulf. Hasisadra goes on board a vessel, distinctly\nalluded to by its appropriate appellation; this ship is launched, and\nmakes a trial-trip to test it: all its chinks are calked with bitumen,\nand it is placed under the charge of a pilot.'\n\nThis remark, which I find made by other commentators as well, suggests,\nit seems to me, somewhat different conclusions. The Hebrews when\nsettled, either in Egypt or in Canaan, were near to the sea-coast, and\nfamiliar with boats and with the ships of the Ph\u0153nicians. If, therefore,\nthey persisted in calling Noah's ark a 'chest,' it must have been from\nunwillingness to change an old history derived from their Chaldean or\nMesopotamian ancestors, or because they continued to regard the ark as\nrather a great box than a ship properly so called. On the other hand, it\nis likely that the particulars in the Chaldean account came from later\nmanipulation of the narrative, after commerce and navigation on the\nEuphrates and Persian Gulf had become familiar to the Chaldeans. Thus in\nthis as in other respects the Hebrew narrative is the more primitive of\nthe two, and is consistent with the necessity of Divine instructions to\nNoah, which, if he had been familiar with navigation, would not have\nbeen necessary.[47]\n\n[47] See also the evidence of an inland position of the writers in the\nrecord of creation in Genesis i., as stated in my work cited in previous\nnote.\n\nAs in the Chaldean version, the Biblical history begins with the\nspecification of the ark. On this (Elohist) portion it is only necessary\nto say that the dimensions of the ark are large and well adapted to\nstowage rather than to speed, and that within it was strengthened by\nthree decks and by a number of bulkheads, or partitions, separating the\nrooms or berths into which it was divided. Without, it was protected and\nrendered tight by coats of resinous or asphaltic varnish (_copher_), and\nit was built of the lightest and most durable kind of wood (gopher or\ncypress). Only two openings are mentioned, a hatch or window above, and\na port or door in the side. There is no mention of any masts, rigging,\nor other means of propulsion or steerage. The Chaldean history differs\nin introducing a steersman, thus implying the means of propulsion as in\nan actual ship.\n\nNoah is instructed, in addition to his own family, to provide for\nanimals, two of every kind; but these very general terms are afterwards\nlimited by the words _uph_, _bemah_, and _remesh_, which define birds,\ncattle, and small quadrupeds as those specially intended. Noah's ark was\nnot a menagerie, but rather like a cattle-ship, capable perhaps of\naccommodating as many animals as one of those steamers which now\ntransfer to England the animal produce of Western fields and prairies.\nThe animals portrayed on the ancient monuments of Egypt and Assyria,\nhowever, inform us that, in early post-diluvial times, and therefore\nprobably also in the time of Noah, a greater variety of animals were\nunder the control of man than is the case in any one country at\npresent.[48] In the passage referring to the embarkation, only the\ncattle and fowls are mentioned, but seven pairs are to be taken of the\nclean species which could be used as food.[49] The embarkation having\nbeen completed on the very day when the Deluge commenced, we have next\nthe narrative of the Flood itself. Here it is noteworthy that God\n(Elohim) makes the arrangements, and Jahveh shuts the voyagers in.\n\n[48] Houghton, _Natural History of the Ancients_, and _Transactions of\nthe Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_; also representations of tame\nantelopes, &c., on Egyptian monuments.\n\n[49] This has been considered a later addition; but the practice of all\nprimitive peoples has sanctioned the distinction of clean and unclean\nbeasts, which is merely defined in the Mosaic law, not instituted for\nthe first time.\n\nThe first note that our witness enters in his 'log' relates to his\nimpressions of the causes of the catastrophe, which was not effected\nsupernaturally, but by natural causes. These are the 'breaking up of the\nfountains of the great deep' and the 'opening of the windows of heaven.'\nThese expressions must be interpreted in accordance with the use of\nsimilar terms in the account of creation in Genesis i., the more so that\nthis statement is a portion regarded by the composite theory as\nElohistic. On this principle of interpretation, the great deep is that\nuniversal ocean which prevailed before the elevation of the dry land,\nand the breaking up of its fountains is the removal of that restriction\nplaced upon it when its waters were gathered together into one place. In\nother words, the meaning is the invasion of the land by the ocean. In\nlike manner, the windows of heaven, the cloudy reservoirs of the\natmospheric expanse, or possibly waterspouts, or even volcanic\neruptions, and not necessarily identical with the great rain extending\nfor forty days, as stated in the following clause. The Chaldean record\nadds the phenomena of thunder and tempest, but omits the great deep; an\nindication that it is an independent account, and by a less informed or\nless intelligent narrator. It is worthy of note that our narrator has no\nidea of any river inundation in the case.\n\nAt this stage we are brought into the presence of the question: Is the\nDeluge represented as a miraculous or a merely natural phenomenon? Yet,\nfrom a scientific point of view, this question has not the significance\nusually attributed to it. True miracles are not, and cannot be,\ncontraventions or violations of God's natural laws. They are merely\nunusual operations of natural powers under their proper laws, but\nemployed by the Almighty for effecting spiritual ends. Thus, naturally,\nthey are under the laws of the material world, but, spiritually, they\nbelong to a higher sphere. In the present case, according to the\nnarrative in Genesis, the Flood was physically as much a natural\nphenomenon as the earthquakes at Ischia, or the eruption of Krakatoa. It\nwas a miraculous or spiritual intervention only in so far as it was\nrelated to the destruction of an ungodly race, and as it was announced\nbeforehand by a prophet. Had the approaching eruption of Krakatoa been\nintended as a judgment on the wicked, and had it been revealed to anyone\nwho had taken pains to warn his countrymen and then to provide for his\nown safety, this would have given to that eruption as much of a\nmiraculous character as the Bible attaches to the Deluge. In the New\nTestament, where we have more definite information as to miracles, they\nare usually called 'powers' and 'signs,' less prominence being given to\nthe mere wonder which is implied in the term 'miracle.' Under the aspect\nof _powers_, they imply that the Creator can do many things beyond our\npower and comprehension, just as in a lesser way a civilised man, from\nhis greater knowledge of natural laws and command over natural energies,\ncan do much that is incomprehensible to a savage; and in this direction\nscience teaches us that, given an omnipotent God, the field of miracle\nis infinite. As _signs_, on the other hand, such displays of power\nconnect themselves with the moral and spiritual world, and become\nteachers of higher truths and proofs of Divine interference. The true\nposition of miracles as signs is remarkably brought out in that argument\nof Christ, in which He says, 'If ye believe not My words, believe Me for\nthe works' sake.' It is as if a civilised visitor to some barbarous\nland, who had been describing to an incredulous audience the wonders of\nhis own country, were to exhibit to them a watch or a microscope, and\nthen to appeal to them that these were things just as mysterious and\nincredible as those of which he had been speaking.\n\nReturning to the Deluge, we may observe that such an invasion of the\ngreat deep is paralleled by many of which geology presents to us the\nevidence, and that our knowledge of nature enables us to conceive of the\npossibility of greater miracles of physical change than any on record,\nsuch as, for instance, the explosion of the earth itself into an\ninfinity of particles, the final extinction of the solar heat, or the\naccession to this heat of such additional fierceness as to burn up the\nattendant planets. All this might take place without any interference\nwith God's laws, but merely by correlations and adjustments of them, as\nmuch within His power as the turning on or stopping of a machine is in\nthe power of a human engineer. Further, such acts of Divine power may be\nrelated to moral and spiritual things, just as easily as any outward\naction resulting from our own will may be determined by moral\nconsiderations. The time is past when any rational objection can be made\non the part of science to the so-called miracles of the Bible.\n\nTo return to the passengers in the ark. This must have been built on\nhigh ground, or the progress of the Deluge must have been slow, for\nforty days elapsed before the waters reached the ship and floated it. It\nis not unlikely that the ark was built on rising ground, for here\nsupplies of timber would be nearer. It has puzzled some simple\nantiquarians to find dug-out canoes of prehistoric date on the tops of\nhills; but they did not reflect that the maker of a canoe would\nconstruct his vessel where the suitable wood could be found, since it\nwould be much easier to carry the finished canoe to the shore than to\ndrag thither the solid log out of which it was to be fashioned. So Noah\nwould naturally build his ark where the wood he required could be\nprocured most easily. The Chaldean narrator seems to have overlooked\nthis simple consideration, for he mentions a launching and trial-trip of\nthe ship, a sure mark that he is a later authority than the writer in\nGenesis.\n\nThe inmates of the ark now felt that it was moving on the waters, a new\nand dread sensation which must have deeply impressed their minds, and\nthey soon became aware that the ark not merely floated, but 'went,' or\nmade progress in some definite direction. Remark the simple yet\nsignificant notes--'The ark was lift up from the earth,' and 'the ark\nwent upon the face of the waters.' The direction of driftage is not\nstated, but it is a fair inference, from the probable place of departure\nin Chaldea and that of final grounding of the ark, that it was northward\nor inland, which would indicate that the chief supply of water was from\nthe Indian Ocean, and that it was flowing inward toward the great sunken\nplain of interior Asia, which, however, the ark did not reach, but\ngrounded in the hilly region known to the Hebrews as Ararat, to the\nChaldeans as Nisr. A curious statement is made here (Elohist) as to the\ndepth of the water being fifteen cubits. Even in a flat country so small\na depth would not cover the rising grounds; but this is obviously not\nthe meaning of the narrator, but something much more sensible and\npractical. It is not unlikely that the measure stated was the\nwater-draught of the loaded ark, and that as the voyagers felt it rise\nand fall on the waves, they may have experienced some anxiety lest it\nshould strike and go to pieces. It was no small part of the providential\narrangement in their case that in the track of the ark everything was\nsubmerged more than fifteen cubits before they reached it. Hence this\nnote, which is at the same time one of the criteria of the simple\nveracity of the history. The only other remark in this part of the\nnarrative relates to the entire submergence of the whole country within\nsight, and the consequent destruction of animal life; and here the\nenumeration covers all land animals, and the terms used are thus more\ngeneral than those applied to the animals preserved in the ark. The\nDeluge culminated, in so far as our narrator observed, in one hundred\nand fifty days.\n\nHis next experience is of a gale of wind, accompanied or followed by\ncessation of the rain and of the inflow of the oceanic waters.[50] The\nwaters then decreased, not regularly, but by an intermittent process,\n'going and returning'; but whether this was a tidal phenomenon or of the\nnature of earthquake waves we have no information. At length the ark\ngrounded, apparently on high ground or in thick weather, for no land was\nvisible; but at length, after two months, neighbouring hill-tops were\nseen.\n\n[50] Genesis viii. 1, 2: 'And Elohim made a wind to pass over the earth,\nand the waters abated,' &c.\n\nThe incident of sending out birds to test the recession of the waters\ndeserves notice, because of its apparently trivial nature, because it\nappears with variations in the Chaldean account, and because it has been\ntreated in a remarkably unscientific manner by some critics. It\nindicates the uncertainty which would arise in the mind of the patriarch\nbecause of the fluctuating decrease of the waters, and possibly also a\nmisty condition of the air preventing a distinct view of distant\nobjects. The birds selected for the purpose were singularly appropriate.\nThe raven is by habit a wanderer, and remarkable for power of flight\nand clearness of distant vision. So long, therefore, as it made the ark\nits headquarters, 'going and returning'[51] from its search for food, it\nmight be inferred that no habitable land was accessible. The dove, sent\nout immediately after the raven,[52] is of a different habit. It could\nnot act as a scavenger of the waters and go and return, but could leave\nonly if it found land covered with vegetation. As a domesticated bird\nalso, it would naturally come back to be taken into the ark. Hence it\nwas sent forth at intervals of seven days, returning with an olive leaf\nwhen it found tree tops above the water, and remaining away when it\nfound food and shelter. The Chaldean account adds a third bird, the\nswallow--a perfectly useless addition, since this bird, if taken into\nthe ark at all, would from its habits of life be incapable of affording\nany information. This addition is a mark of interpolation in the\nChaldean version, and proceeded perhaps from the sacred character\nattached by popular superstition to the swallow, or from the familiar\nhabits of the bird suggesting to some later editor its appropriateness.\nSingularly enough, the usually judicious Schrader, probably from\ndeficient knowledge of the habits of birds, fails to appreciate all\nthis, and after a long discussion prefers the Babylonian legend for\nreasons of a most unscientific character, actually condemning the\nperfectly natural and clear Biblical story as artificial and due to a\nrecent emendation. He says: 'When the story passed over to the Hebrews,\nthe name of the swallow has disappeared,' and 'it is only from the\nBabylonian narrative that the selection of the different birds becomes\nclear.' This little disquisition of Schrader is, indeed, one of the most\namusing instances of that inversion of sound criticism which results\nwhen unscientific commentators tamper with the plain statements of\ntruthful and observant witnesses.\n\n[51] Margin of Authorised Version; less fully, 'to and fro' in the text.\n\n[52] There is no reason to suppose, as some have done, a hiatus here in\nthe narrative.\n\nThe uncertainty indicated by the mission of the birds seems to have\ncontinued from the first day of the tenth to the first day of the first\nmonth, when Noah at length ventured to remove the covering of the ark\nand inspect the condition of the surrounding country, now abandoned by\nthe waters, but not thoroughly dried for some time longer. Still, so\ntimid was the patriarch that he did not dare without a special command\nto leave his place of safety. I am aware that if the two alleged\ndocuments are arbitrarily separated it is possible to see here some\napparent contradiction in dates; but this is not necessary if we leave\nthem in their original relation.[53]\n\n[53] See Green, _Hebraica, l. c._\n\nIt will be observed that a narrative such as that summarised above bears\nunmistakably stamped upon it the characteristics of the testimony of an\neye-witness. By whomsoever reduced to writing and finally edited, it\nmust, if genuine, have come down nearly in its present form from the\ntime of the catastrophe which it relates. It follows that the narrator\nleaves no place for the current questions as to the universality of the\nDeluge. It was universal so far as his experience extended, but that is\nall. He is not responsible for what occurred beyond the limits of his\nobservation and beyond the fact that man, so far as known to him,\nperished. If, therefore, as some have held,[54] Balaam in his prophecy\nrefers to Cainite populations as extant in his time, or if Moses\ndeclines to trace to any of the postdiluvian patriarchs the Rephaim,\nEmim, Zuzim and other prehistoric peoples of Palestine, we may infer,\nwithout any contradiction of our narrative, that there were surviving\nantediluvians other than the Noachid\u00e6, whatever improbability may attach\nto this on other grounds, and more especially from the now ascertained\nextension of the post-glacial submergence over nearly all parts of the\nnorthern hemisphere.\n\n[54] Motais, _D\u00e9luge Biblique_.\n\nLet it also be noticed that beyond the prophetic intimation to Noah, and\nthe one expression, Jahveh 'shut him in,' which may refer merely to\nprovidential care, there is, as already remarked, nothing miraculous, in\nthe popular sense of that term; and that mythical elements, such as\nthose introduced into the Babylonian narrative, are altogether absent.\nThe story relates to plain matters of fact, which, if they happened at\nall, any one might observe, and for the proof of which any ordinary\ntestimony would be sufficient. It may be profitable, however, to revert\nhere to the probable relation of this narrative to the geological facts\nalready adverted to, and also its bearing on the mythical and\npolytheistic additions which we find in the Deluge stories of heathen\nnations.\n\nRegarding the Biblical Deluge as a record of a submergence of a vast\nregion of Eur-Asia and Northern Africa, at least, while no similar\ncatastrophe has been recorded subsequently, it is unquestionable that\nsubmergences equally important have occurred again and again in the\ngeological history of our continents, and have been equally destructive\nof animal life. It is true that most of these are believed to have been\nof more slow and gradual character than that recorded in Genesis, but in\nthe case of many of them this is a very uncertain inference from the\nanalogy of modern changes; and it is certain that the post-glacial\nsubmergence, which closed the era of pal\u00e6ocosmic man and his companion\nanimals, must have been one of the most transient on record. On the\nother hand, we need not limit the entire duration of the Noachic\nsubmergence to the single year whose record has been preserved to us.\nLocal subsidence may have been in progress throughout the later\nantediluvian age, and the experience of the narrator in Genesis may have\nrelated only to its culmination in the central district of human\nresidence. Finally, if man was really a witness of this last great\ncontinental submergence, we cannot be too thankful that there were so\nintelligent witnesses to preserve the record of the event for our\ninformation.\n\nIt is needless, then, to enter into further details, though these are\nsufficient to fill volumes if desired, in proof of the remarkable\nconvergence of history and geological discovery on the great Flood,\nwhich now constitutes one of the most remarkable illustrations of the\npoints of contact of science proceeding on its own methods of\ninvestigation and Divine revelation, preserving the records of ancient\nevents otherwise lost or buried under accretions of myth and fancy. I\nhave already endeavoured to show that the earliest race of pal\u00e6ocosmic\nmen, that of Canstadt, very fairly corresponds with what may have been\nthe characteristics of the ruder tribes of Cainites, and that if we\nregard the Truch\u00e8re skull as representing the Sethite people, we may\nsuppose the Cro-magnon race to represent the giants, or Nephelim, who\nsprung from the union of the two pure types. I have also referred to the\npossibility that the Truch\u00e8re race, so little known to us as yet, may\nhave been a prot-Iberian people, possessing even before the Flood\ndomestic animals, agriculture, and some of the arts of life,\ncorresponding to what we find in the earliest postdiluvian nations. This\nis, indeed, implied in the fact that the postdiluvian nations present\nthemselves to us at once with a somewhat advanced condition of the arts,\nespecially in Chaldea and in Egypt. Such possibilities may serve to\nsuggest to speculative arch\u00e6ologists that they cannot safely assume\nthat all antediluvian or pal\u00e6olithic tribes were barbarous or\nsemi-brutal, or that there was a continuous development of humanity\nwithout any diluvial catastrophe. It is also somewhat rash to carry back\nthe chronology of Egyptians and Babylonians to times when, as we know on\nphysical evidence, the Valley of the Nile was an arm of the sea, and the\nplain of the Euphrates an extension of the Persian Gulf. It is fortunate\nfor the Bible that such assumptions are not required by its history.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nSPECIAL QUESTIONS RESPECTING THE DELUGE\n\n\nIn studying the literature relating to the Deluge, we are constantly met\nby questions as to its so-called 'universality.' Was it a local or\nuniversal Deluge and if universal in what sense so? This is a point in\nwhich neglect or ignorance of the necessary physical conditions has led\nto the strangest misconceptions.\n\nIt is obvious that there are four senses in which a catastrophe like the\nDeluge of Noah may be affirmed or denied to have been universal.\n\n1. It may have been universal in the sense of being a deep stratum of\nwater covering the whole globe, both land and sea. Such universality\ncould not have been in the mind of the writer, and probably has been\nclaimed knowingly by no writer in modern times. Halley in the last\ncentury understood the conditions of such universality, though he seems\nto have supposed that the impact of a comet might supply the necessary\nwater. Owen has directed attention to the fact that such a deluge might\nbe as fatal to the inhabitants of the waters as to those of the land.\nIn any case, such universality would demand an enormous supply of water\nfrom some extra-terrestrial source.\n\n2. The Deluge may have been universal in the sense of being a submersion\nof the whole of the land, either by subsidence or by elevation of the\nocean bed. Such a state of things may have existed in primitive\ngeological ages before our continents were elevated, but we have no\nscientific evidence of its recurrence at any later time, though large\nportions of the continents have been again and again submerged. The\nwriters of Genesis i. and of Psalm civ. seem to have known of no such\ntotal submergence since the elevation of the first dry land, and nothing\nof this kind is expressed or certainly implied in the Deluge story.\n\n3. The Deluge may have been universal in so far as man, its chief\nobject, and certain animals useful or necessary to him, are concerned.\nThis kind of universality would seem to have been before the mind of the\nwriter when he says that 'Noah only, and they who were with him in the\nark, remained alive.'[55]\n\n[55] Genesis vii. 23.\n\n4. The Deluge may have been universal in so far as the area and\nobservation and information of the narrator extended. The story is\nevidently told in the form of a narrative derived from eye-witnesses,\nand this form seems even to have been chosen or retained purposely to\navoid any question of universality of the first and second kinds\nreferred to above. The same form of narrative is preserved in the\nChaldean legend. This fact is not affected by the doctrine held by some\nof the schools of disintegrators, that the narrative is divisible into\ntwo documents, respectively 'Jahvistic' and 'Elohistic.' I have\nelsewhere[56] shown that there is a very different reason for the use of\nthese two names of God. But if there were two original witnesses whose\nstatements were put together by an editor, this surely does not\ninvalidate their testimony or deprive them of the right to have it\nunderstood as they intended.\n\n[56] _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, chap. iv.\n\nIt is thus evident that the whole question of 'universality' is little\nmore than a mere useless logomachy, having no direct relation to the\nfacts or to the credibility of the narrative.\n\nThere are also in connection with this question of universality certain\nscientific and historical facts already referred to which we may again\nsummarise here, and which are essential to the understanding of the\nquestion. Nothing is more certainly known in geology than that at the\nclose of the later tertiary or pleistocene age the continents of the\nnorthern hemisphere stood higher and spread their borders more widely\nthan at present. In this period also they were tenanted by a very grand\nand varied mammalian fauna, and it is in this continental age of the\nlater pleistocene or early modern time that we find the first\nunequivocal evidence of man as existing on various parts of the\ncontinents. At the close of this period occurred changes, whether sudden\nor gradual we do not know, though they could not have occupied a very\nlong time, which led to the extinction of the earliest races of men and\nmany contemporaneous animals. That these changes were in part, at least,\nof the nature of submergence we learn from the fact that our present\ncontinents are more sunken or less elevated out of the water, and also\nfrom the deposit of superficial gravels and other _detritus_ more recent\nthan the pleistocene over their surfaces. We are thus shut up by\ngeological facts to the belief in a Deluge geologically modern and\npractically universal.\n\nOne other objection to the Deluge narrative perhaps deserves a word of\ncomment--that urged against the statement of the gradual disappearance\nof the waters. The extraordinary difficulty is raised respecting this,\nthat the water must have rushed seaward in a furious torrent. The\nobjection is based apparently on the idea that the foundation for the\noriginal narrative was a river inundation in the Mesopotamian plain.\nThis cannot be admitted; but if it were, the objection would not apply.\nRiver inundations, whether of the Nile or Euphrates, subside inch by\ninch, not after the manner of mountain torrents. Thus this objection is\nanother instance of difficulties gratuitously imported into the history.\n\nIn point of fact the narrator represents the Deluge as prevailing for a\nwhole year, which would be impossible in the case of a river inundation.\nHe attributes it in part, at least, to the 'great deep'--that is, the\nocean; and he represents the ark as drifting inland or toward the north.\nSuch conditions can be satisfied only by the supposition of a subsidence\nof the land similar in kind, at least, to the great post-glacial flood\nof geology. Partial subsidences of this kind, local but very extreme,\nhave occurred even in later times, as, for instance, in the Runn of\nCutch, the delta of the Mississippi, and the delta of the Nile; and if\nthe objectors are determined to make the Deluge of Noah very local and\nmore recent than the post-glacial flood, it would be more rational to\nrefer to subsidences like those just mentioned, and of which they will\nfind examples in Lyell's _Principles_ and other geological books. It is,\nhowever, decidedly more probable that Noah's Flood is identical with\nthat which destroyed the men of the mammoth age, the pal\u00e6ocosmic or\n'pal\u00e6olithic' men;[57] and in that case the recession of the waters\nwould probably be gradual, but intermittent, 'going and returning,' as\nour ancient narrator has it; but there need not have been any violent\n_d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_.\n\n[57] _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, chaps. iii. and iv.\n\nIt is also to be noted that a submergence of the land and consequent\ndeluge may be cataclysmic or tranquil, according to local circumstances,\nand that it may have been locally sudden, while for the whole world it\nwas gradual and of longer duration. Such differences must belong to all\ngreat submergences, which may in one place produce great disturbance and\nvery coarse deposits, in another may be quiet and deposit the finest\nsilt. Even the flood of a river or the action of a tide admits of\nvariations of this kind. In narrow channels the great tides of the Bay\nof Fundy rush as torrents; in wide bays they creep in imperceptibly.\n\nThe traditions and Biblical history of the Deluge not only furnish\nimportant material for connecting the geological ages with the period of\nhuman history, and for enabling us to realise the fact that early man\nwas a witness of some of the later physical and vital vicissitudes that\nhave passed over the earth, but may be correlated with other ancient\ntraditions which seem at first sight to have no immediate relation to\nit.\n\nAs an example, I may refer to the well-known Egyptian fable of Atlantis,\nwhich may be a reminiscence of early man in the second continental\nperiod, and which we may, perhaps, even connect with the Mexican\ntradition of civilisation reaching America from the East.[58]\n\n[58] It is, perhaps, only an accident that _Atl_ is the Mexican word for\nwater.\n\nPlato has handed down to us a circumstantial tradition, derived from\nEgypt, of a great Atlantic continent west of Europe, once thickly\npeopled, and the seat of an empire that was dominant over the\nMediterranean regions. This continent, or island, was called Atlantis,\nand it had been submerged with all its people in prehistoric times. This\ntradition may have reference to certain geological facts of the early\nmodern period already referred to. If the Egyptian tradition really\nextended back to the antediluvian period, we can readily understand\ntheir belief in the continent of Atlantis. We have already ascertained\nthe great extension in that period of the land of Western Europe, and\nthere may have been outlying insular tracts in the Atlantic now quite\nunknown to us. These lands may well have sustained nations of the\ngigantic Cro-magnon race, 'men of renown,' who, when their westward\nprogress was stayed by the ocean, and they were checked in the north by\nthe increasing cold, may have turned their arms against the dwellers on\nthe Mediterranean coasts, perhaps in the age immediately preceding the\nDeluge. We know little as yet of the history of those Horshesu, or\nchildren of Horus, who are said to have preceded the historic period in\nEgypt. There must have been Egyptian literature about these people, and\nshould this be recovered we shall probably learn more of Atlantis. In\nthe meantime we may, at least, bring the tradition of that perished\ncontinent into harmony with geology and history. I may add that we need\nnot consider the above view as at variance with that of those\narch\u00e6ologists who, like the late Sir D. Wilson,[59] suppose the\ntradition of Atlantis to have been founded on vague intimations of the\nexistence of America, since any such intimations which reached the\ncivilised nations of Southern Europe or Africa would naturally be\nconsidered as an indication that some part of the lost Atlantis still\ncontinued to exist.\n\n[59] _The Lost Atlantis_, 1892.\n\nIn still another direction does the deluge story connect itself with\nphysical probabilities. If we examine the Atlantic map representing the\nsoundings of the Challenger expedition, we shall find evidence not only\nof that extension of land in temperate Western Europe which may have\noriginated the story of Atlantis, but other dispositions of land,\nespecially in the extreme north and south, which may have influenced\nantediluvian climate. We have reason to believe that in the second\ncontinental period, that of pal\u00e6ocosmic man, Baffin's Bay may have been\ngreatly narrowed and Behring's Straits entirely closed, while large\ntracts of land existed around Iceland and west of Norway. There would\nthus be almost continuous land connection around the north pole,\npermitting easy extension of man and of hardy animals. There would also\nbe much less access of ice to the North Atlantic.\n\nAt the same time in another region there was probably a land connection\nfrom Florida to South America by the Bahamas, and the equatorial current\nmay have been more powerfully deflected northward than now. The effect\nwould be to produce around the North Atlantic, and especially on the\neastern side, a golden age of genial climate, fitted to early man, but\ndestined as time went on and geographical changes proceeded, preparatory\nto the great diluvial subsidence, to fade away into the cool and damp\nclimate of the later post-glacial or antediluvian period. This again\nwould lead to migrations, wars, and fierce struggles for existence among\nthe human populations--a time of anarchy and violence preceding the\nfinal catastrophe.\n\nMuch collateral evidence in substantiation of these probabilities can be\ncollected from the distribution of marine life[60] and the changes of\nlevel, even on the American coast. They conjure up before us strange\nvisions of the prehistoric past, and of the vicissitudes of which man\nhimself has been witness, and of which, whether through memory and\ntradition or the revelation of God, he has continued to retain some\nwritten records which, long dim and uncertain, are now beginning to be\nput into relation with physical facts ascertained by modern scientific\nobservation.\n\n[60] See _The Ice Age in Canada_, by the author. Montreal: 1893.\n\nWe have already seen how the Deluge story and the fate of the\nantediluvians have interwoven themselves with the myths and\nsuperstitions of the Old World. The six great gods of the Egyptian\npantheon represent the creative days, and the 'Sons of Horus' the\nantediluvians. So we have the ten patriarchs or kings of the old\nChaldeans corresponding to those of Genesis, and the heaven-defying\nTitans of the old mythologies representing the giants before the Flood.\nPerhaps, however, no illustration of this is more patent or more\ntouching than that well-known one of Ishtar, the Astarte of the Syrians,\nthe Artemis of the Greeks, and who has been identified with the chief\nfemale divinity of many other ancient nations, even with that Diana whom\n'all Asia and the inhabited world worshippeth.'\n\nThe Chaldean deluge tablets for the first time introduce her to us as an\nantediluvian goddess, and inform us that she is the deified mother of\nmen, the same with the Biblical Isha, or Eve. In the crisis of the\nDeluge we are told, 'Ishtar spoke like a little child, the great goddess\npronounced her discourse. Behold how mankind has returned to clay. I am\n_the mother who brought forth men_, and like the fishes they fill the\nsea. The gods because of the angels of the abyss are weeping with me.'\nIshtar is thus the mother of men, herself deified and gone into the\nheavens, but even there mourning over her hapless children. She may be a\nstar-goddess, or the moon may be her emblem; but for all that she\nappears in this old legend as a deified human mother, with a mother's\nheart yearning over the progeny that had sprung from her womb, and had\nbeen nourished in her breast. It was this, more than her crescent or\nstarry diadem, that commended her worship to her children. Her\nrepresentative in Genesis, the first mother, Isha, or Eve, is no\ngoddess, but a woman. Yet is she the emblem of life and the mother of a\npromised Redeemer of humanity, who is to undo the results of sin and to\nrestore the Paradise of God bruising the head of the great serpent who,\nin the Chaldean as in the Hebrew story, represents the power of evil.\nIshtar has been represented as the bride of the god Tammuz, the\nAdonis[61] of the Greeks, and whose worship was one of the idolatries\nthat led the women of Israel astray, 'weeping for Tammuz';[62] but it\nnow appears that, according to the oldest doctrine, she is his\nmother,[63] and he was a 'keeper of sheep,' dwelling in Eden, or Idinu,\nand murdered by his brother Adar, who is also a god, and more especially\nthe god of war. In short, the story of Ishtar, Tammuz, and Adar, the\nparent of so many myths, is merely the familiar one of Cain and Abel.\nHence the belief that the murder of Tammuz was connected with the\nDeluge, and hence the annual lamentation of the women for Tammuz when\nthe spring inundations swelled and reddened the waters of the streams--a\nrite possibly even antediluvian, and commemorative of the mourning of\nthe first mother for her slain son, to rescue whom it was fabled that\nshe even descended into Hades.\n\n[61] From the Semitic title 'Adonai,' my Lord.\n\n[62] Ezekiel viii. 14.\n\n[63] Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_.\n\nOppert regards the legend of Tammuz and Ishtar as a solar myth, and\nsupposes that the story of Cain and Abel was based on it. But a family\nhistory of crime and sorrow is a much more real and probable thing as a\nbasis for tradition than a solar myth, and naturalists at least will be\ndisposed to invert the theory, and to believe that the simple Bible\nstory was the foundation of all the varied cults and superstitions that\nclustered round Ishtar and Tammuz, as well as personages like Osiris and\nIsis, who seem to have been later avatars, or revivals of the same tale.\n\nIt would be easy to show that the deluge story has intimate connections\nwith other ancient myths and superstitions, as well as with the results\nof modern arch\u00e6ology and geology. But were this all, our inquiry,\nhowever interesting and curious, would have little practical value. It\nhas two important bearings on the present time. Christianity bases\nitself, its founder Himself being witness, on the early chapters of\nGenesis, as history and prophecy, and the treatment which these ancient\nand inspired records have met with in modern times at the hands of\ndestructive criticism is doing its worst in aid of the anti-*Christian\ntendencies of our time. To remove the doubts that have been cast on\nthese old records is therefore a clear gain to the highest interests of\nhumanity, and if theology and philology are unable to secure this\nbenefit, natural science may well step forward to lend its aid. Another\nconnection with present interests depends on the fact that, while\nsuperstitions akin to that which deified the mother of the promised\nseed, and introduced the world-wide cults of Astarte and Aphrodite,\nstill reign over great masses of men, absolute materialism and desperate\nstruggle for existence among men and nations are growing and extending\nthemselves as never before since the antediluvian times, and are\nprovoking a like signal and direful vengeance. In the midst of all\nthis, Christians look forward to the second coming of Jesus Christ to\ndestroy the powers of evil and to inaugurate a better time; and it was\nHe who said, 'As it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it\nbe in the days of the Son of Man.' Let us remember the old story of the\nflood of Noah lest those days come on us unawares.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nTHE PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC IN THE EAST\n\n\nThe term prehistoric was first used by my friend Sir Daniel Wilson in\nhis _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_. It was intended to express 'the\nwhole period disclosed to us by arch\u00e6ological evidence as distinguished\nfrom what is known by written records.' As Wilson himself reminds us,\nthe term has no definite chronological significance, since historic\nrecords, properly so-called, extend back in different places to very\ndifferent times. With reference, for example, to the Chaldean and Hebrew\npeoples, if we take their written records as history, this extends back\nto the Deluge at least. Written history in Egypt reaches to at least\n3000 years B.C., while in Britain it extends no farther than to the\nlanding of Julius C\u00e6sar, and in America to the first voyage of Columbus.\nIn Palestine we possess written records back to the time of Abraham, but\nthese relate mainly to the Hebrew people. Of the populations which\npreceded the Abrahamic immigration, those 'Canaanites who were already\nin the land,' we have little history before the Exodus, except the\nremarkable letters recently unearthed at Tel-el-Amarna, in Egypt. In\nEgypt we have very early records of the dwellers on the Nile, but of the\nArabian and African peoples, whom they called Pun and Kesh, and the\nAsiatic peoples, whom they knew as Cheta and Hyksos, we have till lately\nknown little more than their names and the representations of them on\nEgyptian monuments. In both countries there may be unsounded depths of\nunwritten history before the first Egyptian dynasty, and before the\nAbrahamic clan crossed the Jordan.\n\nWhat, then, in Egypt and Palestine may be regarded as prehistoric? I\nwould answer--(1) The geographical and other conditions of these\ncountries immediately before the advent of man. (2) The evidence which\nthey afford of the existence, habits, and history of man in periods\naltogether antecedent to any written history, except such notes as we\nhave in the Bible and elsewhere as to the so-called antediluvian world.\n(3) The facts gleaned by arch\u00e6ological evidence as to tribes known to us\nby no records of their own, but only by occasional notices in the\nhistory or monuments of other peoples. In Egypt and Palestine such\npeoples as the Hyksos, the Anakim, the Amalekites, the Hittites, and\nAmorites are of this kind, though contemporary with historic peoples.\n\nPrehistoric annals may thus, in these countries, embrace a wide scope,\nand may introduce us to unexpected facts and questions respecting\nprimitive humanity. I propose in the present chapter to direct attention\nto some points which may be regarded as definitely ascertained in so far\nas arch\u00e6ological evidence can give any certainty, though I cannot\npretend, in so limited a space, to enter into details as to their\nevidence.\n\nBefore proceeding, I may refer by way of illustration to another\ninstance brought into very prominent relief by the publication of\nSchuchardt's work on Schliemann's excavations. We all know how shadowy\nand unreal to our youthful minds were the Homeric stories of the heroic\nage of Greece, and our faith and certainty were not increased when we\nread in the works of learned German critics that the Homeric poems were\ncomposite productions of an age much later than that to which they were\nsupposed to belong, and that their events were rather myths than\nhistory. How completely has all this been changed by the discoveries of\nSchliemann and his followers! Now we can stand on the very threshold\nover which Priam and Hector walked. We can see the jewels that may have\nadorned Helen or Andromache. We can see double-handled cups like that of\nold Nestor, and can recognise the inlaid work of the shield of Achilles,\nand can walk in the halls of Agamemnon. Thus the old Homeric heroes\nbecome real men, as those of our time, and we can understand their\npolitical and commercial relations with other old peoples before quite\nas shadowy. Recent discoveries in Egypt take us still farther back. We\nnow find that the 'Hanebu,' who invaded Egypt in the days of the Hebrew\npatriarchs, were prehistoric Greeks, already civilised, and probably\npossessing letters ages before the date of the Trojan War. So it is with\nthe Bible history, when we see the contemporary pictures of the Egyptian\nslaves toiling at their bricks, or when we stand in the presence of the\nmummy of Rameses II. and know that we look on the face of the Pharaoh\nwho enslaved the Hebrews, and from whose presence Moses fled.\n\nSuch discoveries give reality to history, and similar discoveries are\ndaily carrying us back to old events, and to nations of whom there was\nno history whatever, and are making them like our daily friends and\ncompanions. A notable case is that of the children of Heth, known to us\nonly incidentally by a few members of the nation who came in contact\nwith the early Hebrews. Suddenly we found that these people were the\ngreat and formidable Kheta, or Khatti, who contended on equal terms with\nthe Egyptians and Assyrians for the empire of Western Asia; and when we\nbegan to look for their remains, there appeared, one after another,\nstone monuments, seals, and engraved objects, recording their form and\ntheir greatness, till the tables have quite been turned, and there is\ndanger that we may attach too much importance to their agency in times\nof which we have scarcely any written history. Thus, just as the quarry\nand the mine reveal to us the fossil remains of animals and plants great\nin their time, but long since passed away, so do the spade and pick of\nthe excavator constantly turn up for us the bones and the works of a\nfossil and prehistoric humanity.\n\nEgypt may be said to have no prehistoric period, and our task with it\nwill be limited to showing that its written history scarcely goes back\nas far as many Egyptologists suppose and confidently affirm, and that\nbeyond this it has as yet afforded nothing. Egypt, in short, old though\nit seems, is really a new country. When its priests, according to Plato,\ntaunted Solon with the newness of the Greeks and referred to the old\nwestern empire of Atlantis, they were probably trading on traditions of\nantediluvian times, which had no more relation to the actual history of\nthe Egyptian people than to that of the Greeks.\n\nThe limestones and sandstones which bound the Nile valley, sometimes\nrising in precipitous cliffs from the bank of the stream, sometimes\nreceding for many miles beyond the edge of the green alluvial plain, are\nrocks formed in cretaceous and early tertiary times under the sea, when\nall Northern Africa and Western Asia were beneath the ocean. When raised\nfrom the sea-bed to form land, they were variously bent and fractured,\nand the Nile valley occupies a rift or fault, which, lying between the\nhard ridges of the Arabian hills on the east and the more gentle\nelevations of the Nubian desert on the west, afforded an outlet for the\nwaters of interior Africa and for the great floods which in the rainy\nseason pour down from the mountains of Abyssinia.\n\nThis outlet has been available and has been in process of erosion by\nrunning water from a period long anterior to the advent of man, and with\nthis early pre-human history belonging to the miocene and pliocene\nperiods of geology we have no need to meddle, except to state that it\nwas closed by a great subsidence, that of the pleistocene or glacial\nperiod, when the land of North Africa and Western Asia was depressed\nseveral hundred feet, when Africa was separated from Asia, when the Nile\nvalley was an arm of the sea, and when sea-shells were deposited on the\nrising grounds of Lower Egypt at a height of two hundred feet or\nmore.[64] Such raised beaches are found not only in the Nile valley but\non the shores of the Red Sea, and, as we shall see, along the coast of\nPalestine; but, so far as known, no remains of man have been found in\nconnection with them. This great depression must, however, geologically\nspeaking, have been not much earlier than the advent of man, since in\nmany parts of the world we find human remains in deposits of the next\nsucceeding era.\n\n[64] Hull, _Geology of Palestine and adjacent Districts_, Palestine\nExploration Fund. Dawson, _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, p. 311 and\nAppendix. References will be found in these works to the labours of\nFraas, Schweinfurth, and others.\n\nThis next period, that known to geologists as the post-glacial or early\nmodern, was characterised by an entire change of physical conditions.\nThe continents of the northern hemisphere were higher and wider than\nnow. The details of this we have already considered, and have seen that\nat this time the Mediterranean was divided into two basins, and a broad\nfringe of low land, now submerged, lay around its eastern end. This was\nthe age of those early pal\u00e6olithic or pal\u00e6ocosmic men whose remains are\nfound in the caverns and gravels of Europe and Asia. What was the\ncondition of Egypt at this time? The Nile must have been flowing in its\nvalley; but there was probably a waterfall or cataract at Silsilis in\nUpper Egypt, and rapids lower down, and the alluvial plain was much less\nextensive than now and forest-clad, while the river seems to have been\nunable to reach the Mediterranean and to have turned abruptly eastward,\ndischarging into a lake where the Isthmus of Suez now is, and probably\nrunning thence into the Red Sea, so that at this time the waters of the\nNile approached very near to those of the Jordan, a fact which accounts\nfor that similarity of their modern fauna which has been remarked by so\nmany naturalists. I have myself collected in the deposits of this old\nlake, near Ismailia, fresh-water shells of kinds now living in the Upper\nNile. If at this time men visited the Nile valley, they must have been\nonly a few bold hunters in search of game, and having their permanent\nhomes on the Mediterranean plains now submerged.\n\nIf they left any remains we should find these in caverns or rock\nshelters, or in the old gravels belonging to this period which here and\nthere project through the alluvial plain. At one of these places, Jebel\nAssart, near Thebes, General Pitt-Rivers has satisfied himself of the\noccurrence of flint chips which may have been of human workmanship;[65]\nbut after a day's collecting at the spot, I failed to convince myself\nthat the numerous flint flakes in the gravel were other than accidental\nfragments. If they really are flint knives they are older than the\nperiod we are now considering, and must be much older than the first\ndynasty of the Egyptian historic kings.[66] These gravels were indeed,\nin early Egyptian times, so consolidated that tombs were excavated in\nthem. Independently of this case, I know of no trustworthy evidence of\nthe residence of the earliest men in Egypt. Yet we know that at this\ntime rude hunting tribes had spread themselves over Western Asia, and\nover Europe as far as the Atlantic, and were slaying the mammoth, the\nhairy rhinoceros, the wild horse, and other animals now extinct. They\nwere the so-called 'pal\u00e6olithic' or historically antediluvian men,\nbelonging, like the animals they hunted, to extinct races, quite\ndissimilar physically from the historical Egyptians. And yet in a recent\nreview of the late Miss Edwards's charming work, _Pharaohs, Fellahs, and\nExplorers_, she was taken to task by an eminent Egyptologist for\nstatements similar to the above. On the evidence of two additional finds\nof flint implements _on the surface_, he affirms the existence of man\nin Egypt at a time when 'the Arabian deserts were covered with verdure\nand intersected by numerous streams,' that is, geologically speaking, in\nthe early pleistocene or pliocene period, or even in the miocene!\n\n[65] _Journal of Arch\u00e6ological Society_, 1881. Haynes's _Journal of the\nAmerican Academy of Sciences_.\n\n[66] Dawson, _Egypt and Syria_, p. 149.\n\nSingularly enough, therefore, Egypt is to the prehistoric annalist not\nan old country--less old indeed than France and England, in both of\nwhich we find evidence of the residence of the pal\u00e6olithic cave men of\nthe mammoth age. Thus, when we go beyond local history into the\nprehistoric past, our judgment as to the relative age of countries may\nbe strangely reversed.\n\nIt is true that in Egypt, as in most other countries, flint flakes, or\nother worked flints, are common on the surface and in the superficial\nsoil; but there is no good evidence that they did not belong to historic\ntimes. A vivid light has been thrown on this point by Petrie's\ndiscovery, in _d\u00e9bris_ attributed to the age of the twelfth dynasty, or\napproximately that of the Hebrew patriarchs, of a wooden sickle of the\nordinary shape, but armed with flint fakes serrated at their edges,[67]\nthough the handle is beautifully curved in such a manner as to give a\nbetter and more convenient hold than with those now in use. This\nprimitive implement presents to us the Egyptian farmer of that age\nreaping his fields of wheat and barley with implements similar to those\nof the pal\u00e6ocosmic men. No doubt, at the same time, he used a harrow\narmed with rude flints, and may have used flint flakes for cutting wood\nor for pointing his arrows. Yet he was a member of a civilised and\nhighly-organised nation, which could execute great works of canalisation\nand embankment, and could construct tombs and temples that have not\nsince been surpassed. Can we doubt that the common people in Palestine\nand other neighbouring countries were equally in the flint age, or be\nsurprised that, somewhat later, Joshua used flint knives to circumcise\nthe Israelites?[68] How remarkable are these links of connection between\nearly Eastern civilisation and the stone age! and they relate to mere\nflakes, such as if found separately might be styled 'pal\u00e6olithic.'\n\n[67] _Kahun and Garob_, Egyptian Exploration Fund publications.\n\n[68] Joshua v. 2, marginal reading.\n\nIn accordance with all this, when we examine the tenants of the oldest\nEgyptian tombs, who are known to us by their sculptured statues and\ntheir carved and painted portraits, we find them to be the same with the\nEgyptians of historic times, and not very dissimilar from the modern\nCopts, and we also find that their arts and civilisation were not very\nunlike those of comparatively late date.\n\nThere are, however, some points in which the early condition of even\nhistoric Egypt was different from the present or from anything recorded\nin written history.\n\nI have elsewhere endeavoured, with the aid of my friend Dr.\nSchweinfurth, to restore the appearance of the Nile valley when first\nvisited by man in the post-diluvial period. It was then probably\ndensely wooded with forests similar to those in the modern Soudan, and\nmust have swarmed with animal life in the air, on the land, and in the\nwater, including many formidable and dangerous beasts. On the other\nhand, to a people derived from the Euphratean plains and accustomed to\nirrigation, it must have seemed a very garden of the Lord in its\nfertility and resources.\n\nThere is good reason to credit the Egyptian traditions that the first\ncolonists crossed over from Southern Arabia by the Red Sea from that\nland of Pun to which the Egyptians attributed their theology, and\nsettled in the neighbourhood of Abydos, and that they made their way\nthence to the northward, at a time when the delta was yet a mere\nswamp,[69] and when they had slowly to extend their cultivation in Lower\nEgypt by dikes and canals. If we ask when the first immigrants arrived,\nwe are met by the most extravagantly varied estimates, derived mainly\nfrom attempts to deduce a chronology from the dynastic lists of Egyptian\nkings. That these are very uncertain, and in part duplicated, is now\ngenerally understood, but still there is a tendency to ask for a time\nfar exceeding that for which we have any good warrant in authentic\nhistory elsewhere. Herodotus estimated the time necessary for the\ndeposition of the mud of the delta at 20,000 years; but if we assume\nthat this deposit has been formed since the land approximately attained\nto its present level, allowing for some subsidence in the delta in\nconsequence of the weight of sediment, and estimating the average rate\nof deposition at one fifteenth of an inch per annum, which is as low an\namount as can probably be assumed, we shall have numbers ranging from\n5,300 to about 7,000 years for the lapse of time since the delta was a\nbay of the Mediterranean.\n\n[69] _Herodotus_, Book II. chap. 15.\n\nIt is true that the recent borings in the delta, under the officers of\nthe British Engineers, have shown a great depth in some places without\nreaching the original bottom of the old bay. Some geologists have\naccordingly inferred from this a much greater age for the deposit than\nthat above stated,[70] and in this they are in one respect justified;\nbut they have to bear in mind that only the upper part of the material\nbelongs to the modern period. A vast thickness is due to the pleistocene\nand pliocene ages, when the Nile was cutting out its valley and\ndepositing the excavated material in the sea at its mouth. A careful\nexamination of the borings proves by their composition that this is\nactually the case.[71] Geologists who have been guided by these facts in\ntheir estimates of time have been taunted as affirming that a great\ndiluvial catastrophe occurred while quiet government and civilised life\nwere going on in Egypt. The evidence for this early date of Egyptian\ncolonisation of the Nile valley is, as everyone knows, doubtful, and it\nmight be retorted that arch\u00e6ologists represent the Egyptian government\nas dating from a period when the Nile valley was an inland district, and\nwhen the centres of human population must have been, principally at\nleast, on lands now submerged.\n\n[70] Judd, _Report to Royal Society_, 1885.\n\n[71] _Modern Science in Bible Lands_, where evidence of similar dates in\nother countries is stated.\n\nAs an example of the fanciful way in which this subject is sometimes\ntreated, I may cite the fabulous antiquity attributed to the great\nsphinx of Gizeh. We are told that it is the most ancient monument in\nEgypt, antedating the pyramids, and belonging to the time of the mystic\n'Horshesu,' or people of Horus, of Egyptian tradition. In one sense this\nis true, since the sphinx is merely an undisturbed mass of the eocene\nlimestone of the plateau. But its form must have been given to it after\nthe surrounding limestone was quarried away by the builders of the\npyramids, and consequently long after the founding of Memphis by the\nfirst Egyptian king Mena. The sphinx is, in short, a block of stone left\nby the quarrymen, and probably shaped by them as an appropriate monument\nto the workmen who died while the neighbouring pyramids were being\nbuilt. A similar monument, of immensely greater antiquity from a\ngeological point of view, exists near Montreal, in a huge boulder of\nLaurentian gneiss, placed on a pedestal by the workmen employed on the\nVictoria Bridge, in memory of immigrants who died of ship fever in the\nyears when the bridge was being built.\n\nIt follows from all this that the monumental history of Egypt, extending\nto about 3000 years B.C., gives us the whole story of the country,\nunless some chance memorial of a population belonging to the\npost-glacial age should in future be found. There are, however, things\nin Egypt which illustrate prehistoric times in other countries, and some\nof these have lately thrown a new and strange light on the early history\nof Palestine, and especially on the Bible history.\n\nOne of the kings of the eighteenth dynasty, whose historical position\nwas probably between the time of Joseph and that of Moses, Amunoph III.,\nis believed to have married an Asiatic wife, and under her influence, he\nand his successor, Amunoph IV., or Khu en-Aten, seem to have swerved\nfrom the old polytheism of Egypt, and introduced a new worship, that of\nAten, a god visibly represented by the disk of the sun, and, therefore,\nin some sense identical with Ra, the chief god of Egypt; but there was\nsomething in this new worship offensive to the priests of Ra. Perhaps it\nwas regarded as a Semitic or Asiatic innovation, or led to the\nintroduction of unpopular Semitic priests and officers. Amunoph IV.\nconsequently abandoned the royal residence at Thebes, and established a\nnew capital at a place now called Tel-el-Amarna, almost at the boundary\nof Upper and Lower Egypt, and from this place he ruled not only Egypt\nbut a vast region in Western Asia, which had been subjected to the\nEgyptian government in the reign of the third Amunoph. From these\nsubject districts, extending from the frontiers of Egypt to Asia Minor\non the north, and to the Euphrates on the east, came great numbers of\ndespatches to the Pharaoh, and these were written not on papyrus or\nskin, but on tablets of clay hardened by baking, and the writing was not\nthat of Egypt, but the arrow-head script of Chaldea, which seems at this\ntime to have been the current writing throughout Western Asia.[72]\n\n[72] It is possible, however, that it may really have been a language of\ndiplomacy merely, and may have been used by the Semitic agents of\nAmunoph as a cipher to communicate with the Egyptian court, and which\ncould not be read by messengers or enemies acquainted only with Hittite\nor Egyptian hieroglyphics or with the Ph\u0153nician characters. For a\nsimilar case see 2 Kings xviii. 26.\n\nThe scribes of the Egyptian king read these documents, answered them as\ndirected by their master, docketed them, and laid them up for reference;\nand, strange to say, a few years ago, Arabs, digging in the old mounds,\nbrought them to light, and we have before us, translated into English, a\ngreat number of letters, written from cities of Palestine and its\nvicinity about a hundred years before the Exodus, and giving us\nword-pictures of the politics and conflicts of the Canaanites and\nHittites and other peoples, long before Joshua came in contact with\nthem. Among other things in this correspondence, we find remarkable\nconfirmation of the sacred and political influence of Jerusalem, which\nthe Bible presents to us in the widely separated stories of Melchisedec,\nking of Salem, in the time of Abraham, and of the suzerainty of\nAdonizedec, king of Jerusalem, in the time of Joshua.\n\nAt the time in question, Jerusalem was ruled by a king or chief, subject\nto Egypt, but, as in the times of Abraham and Joshua, exercising some\nheadship over neighbouring cities. He complains of certain hostile\npeoples called _chabiri_, a name supposed by Zimmel[73] to be equivalent\nto Ibrim or Hebrews, which to some may seem strange, as the Israelites\nwere, according to the generally received chronology, at this time in\nEgypt. We must bear in mind, however, that according to the Bible the\nIsraelites were not the only 'children of Eber.' The Edomites, Moabites,\nAmmonites, Ishmaelites, and Midianites were equally entitled to this\nname; and we know, from the second chapter of Deuteronomy, that these\nwere warlike and intrusive peoples, who had, before the Exodus,\ndispossessed several native tribes, so that we do not wonder at the fact\nthat a king of Jerusalem might have been suffering from their attacks\nlong before the Exodus.[74] It may be noted incidentally here, that this\nwide application of the term Hebrew accords with the use of the name\n_Aperiu_ for Semitic peoples other than Israelites in Egypt.\n\n[73] Inaugural Lecture, Halle, 1891. Possibly these people were merely\n'confederate' Hittites and Amorites (Sayce, _Records cf the Past_).\n\n[74] I cannot agree with Conder that the Exodus took place as early as\nthe time of Amunoph III. The evidence we have from Egyptian sources\nplainly indicates one of the immediate successors of Rameses II. as the\nPharaoh of the Exodus.\n\nWe have here also a note on an obscure passage in the life of Moses,\nnamely, his apparent want of acquaintance with the name Jehovah until\nrevealed to him at Horeb.[75] Now, as reported in Exodus, Moses in that\ninterview addressed God as 'Adon,' which is supposed to be the Hebrew\nequivalent of 'Aten,' the meaning being Lord. This is a curious\nincidental agreement with the prevalence of the Aten worship in Egypt,\nand shows that this name may have been currently used by the Israelites,\nwhose God Moses himself calls Adon, till commanded to use the name\nJehovah.\n\n[75] Exodus iii. 16 _et seqq._ This passage has been often\nmisunderstood, but it certainly shows that the name Jehovah had become\nnearly obsolete among the Hebrews in Egypt, and that the name usually\ngiven to God was Adon or Aten.\n\nA second point of contact of Egypt and Palestine is in the painting and\nsculptures of hostile and conquered nations in Egyptian temples and\ntombs. These were evidently intended to be portraits, and an admirable\nseries of them has been published by Mr. Petrie under a commission from\nthe British Association for the Advancement of Science. By means of\nthese excellent photographs, now before me, we can see for ourselves the\nphysiognomy and form of head of the Amorite, Philistine, Hittite, and\nmany other peoples previously known to us only by name and a few\nhistorical facts; and thus with their correspondence, as preserved in\nthe Tel-el-Amarna tablets, and their pictures as given by Petrie, we\nhave them before us much as we have the speeches and portraits of our\ncontemporaries in the illustrated newspapers, and can venture to express\nsome opinion as to their ethnic affinities and appearance, and can judge\nmore accurately as to the familiar statements of the Bible respecting\nthem.[76] Lastly, Maspero and Tomkins have, with the aid of the names\nfixed by the survey of Western Palestine, revised the lists given by\nThothmes III., in the temple of Karnak, of the places which this\nEgyptian Alexander had conquered; and they have thus verified the Hebrew\ngeography of the Books of Joshua and Judges.\n\n[76] Sayce, _Races of the Old Testament_, Religious Tract Society.\n\nAnother unexpected acquisition is the solution of the mystery which has\nenshrouded that mysterious people known as Hyksos or shepherd kings, who\ninvaded Egypt about the time of the Hebrew patriarchs, and, after\nkeeping the Egyptians in subjection for centuries, were finally expelled\nby the predecessors of the Amunoph already referred to. They constitute\na great feature in early Egyptian history, but disappear mysteriously,\nleaving no trace but a few sculptured heads, Turanian in aspect and\nmarkedly contrasting with those of the native Egyptians. It now appears\nthat a people of Northern Syria and Mesopotamia, known to the Egyptians\nat a later time as Mitanni, and who were neighbours of and associated\nwith the Northern Hittites, have the features of the Hyksos. It also\nseems from a letter in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets that they spoke a\nnon-Semitic or Turanian language akin to that of the Hittites. Thus we\nhave traced the shepherd kings to their origin, and, curiously enough,\nCushanrish-athaim, who oppressed the Israelites in the days of Othniel,\nseems to represent a later inroad of the same people.\n\nSuch 'restitutions of decayed intelligence' now meet us on every hand as\nthe results of modern exploration, and are enabling us to bridge over\nthe gaps which have separated the geological ages from the prehistoric\nand historic human periods in those ancient countries where civilisation\nseems to have originated.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE NEANTHROPIC DISPERSION AND ALLIED TOPICS\n\n\nThe remarkable record of the early distribution of the sons of Noah\n('Toledoth' of the sons of Noah) in Genesis x. may be regarded,\nrelatively to most of the nations it refers to, as a scrap of\nprehistoric lore of the most intensely interesting character. From the\nold 'Phaleg' of Bochart to the recent commentaries of Delitzsch and\nother German scholars, it has received a host of more or less\nconjectural explanations; and while all agree in extolling its value and\nimportance as a 'Beginning of History,' nothing can be more various than\nthe views taken of it. Only in the light of the recent discoveries and\nresearches already referred to can we arrive at a clear conception of\nits import; but with these and some common sense we may hope to be more\nfortunate than the older interpreters. It is necessary, however, to\nexplain here that, for want of a little scientific precision, many\nmodern arch\u00e6ologists still fail in their interpretations. They tell us\nthat the Toledoth are not properly 'ethnological,' but rather\n'ethnographical,' and that we are to regard the document as referring,\nnot to the genealogical affiliations of nations, but to their accidental\ngeographical positions at the time of the record.\n\nNow this is precisely what the writer, with a sure scientific instinct,\ncarefully guards against, and explicitly informs us he did not intend.\nHe tells us that he gives the '_generations_ of the sons of Noah' and\ntheir descendants, and at the ends of the three lists relating to these\nsons, he is careful to say that he has given them 'in their lands, each\naccording to his language, after their families, in their nations,' or\nthe formula is slightly varied into 'after their families, after their\ntongues, in their lands, in their nations.' Lastly, in the conclusion of\nthe whole table he reiterates, 'These are the _families_ of the sons of\nNoah, according to their generations, after their nations.' All these\nstatements, let it be observed, are acknowledged to be parts of one\n(Elohistic) document. It is clear, therefore, that the writer intends us\nto understand that the determining elements of his classification are\nneither physical characters nor accidents of geographical distribution,\nbut descent and original language--two primary and scientific grounds of\nclassification, and which common sense requires us to adhere to in\ninterpreting the document, whose value will depend on the certainty with\nwhich the writer could ascertain facts as to these criteria: criteria\nwhich are, of course, less open to the observation of later inquirers,\nwho may find difficulty in ascertaining either descent or _original_\nlanguage, and in default of these may be obliged to resort to other\ngrounds of classification.\n\n[Illustration: MAP SHOWING LINES OF POSTDILUVIAN MIGRATIONS FROM SHINAR,\nAS IN GENESIS X.]\n\nAmong modern arch\u00e6ologists it has been a fruitful source of controversy\nwhether we should classify men according to their skulls or to their\ntongues; in other words, whether physical characters or linguistic\nshould be dominant in our classifications. Neither ground is absolutely\ncertain. We may find long and short skulls in the same grave-mound, and\nthere are intermediate forms which defy certain arrangement. In like\nmanner history assures us that people of one race have often adopted the\nlanguage of another. True science warns us that we may err unless we\ngive a fair valuation to every available character. The ethnologist of\nGenesis considers both physical and linguistic characters, but bases his\narrangement mainly on the sure ground of descent along with _original_\nlanguage.\n\nIt may be said, however, that if taken in the sense obviously intended\nby the writer, the list will not correspond with the facts. A few data\nhave, however, to be taken into the account in order to give this early\nwriter fair play.\n\n1. The record has nothing to do with antediluvian peoples or with\nsurvivors of the Deluge other than the sons of Noah, if there were any\nsuch. Therefore, those ethnologists who are sceptical as to the\nhistorical Deluge, and who postulate an uninterrupted advance of man\nthrough long ages of semi-bestial brutality, have nothing in common\nwith our narrator, and cannot possibly understand his statements.\n\n2. The document does not profess to be a series of ethnological\ninferences from the present or ancient characters of different nations,\nbut an actual historical statement of the known migrations of men from a\ncommon centre in Shinar, the Sumir of the Chaldeans.\n\n3. It relates only to the primary distribution of men from their alleged\ncentre over certain districts of Western Asia, Eastern Europe, and\nNorthern Africa, and does not profess to know anything of their\nsubsequent migrations or history.\n\n4. It is thus not responsible for those later, even if very ancient,\nchanges which displaced one race by another, or obliged one race to move\non by the pressure of another, nor for any changes of language or\nmixtures of races which may have occurred in these movements.\n\n5. It affirms nothing as to the physical characters of the races\nreferred to, except as they may be inferred from heredity, but it\nimplies some resemblance in language between the derivatives of the same\nstock, and this, be it observed, notwithstanding the added narrative of\nthe confusion of tongues at Babel,[77] which the narrator does not\nregard as interfering with the fact of languages originally forming a\nfew branches proceeding from a common stock.\n\n[77] Held by some to belong to another (Jahvistic) document, but\ncertainly incorporated by the early editor.\n\n6. If we ask what our narrator supposed to be the original or Noachic\ntongue, we might infer from his three lines of descent, and from the\nlocality of the dispersion and the episode of Nimrod's prehistoric\nkingdom, that the primitive language of Chaldea would be the original\nstem; and this we now know from authentic written records to have been\nan agglutinate language of the type usually known as Turanian, and more\nclosely allied to the Tartar and Chinese tongues than to other kinds of\nspeech. It would follow that what we now call Semitic and Aryan or\nJaphetic forms of speech must, in the view of our ancient authority,\ndate from the sequel\u00e6 of the great 'confusion of tongues.'\n\nThese points being premised, we can clear away the fogs which have been\ngathered around this little luminous spot in the early history of the\nworld, and can trace at least the principal ethnic lines of radiation\nfrom it. Though the writer gives us three main branches of affiliation\nof the children of Noah, he really refers to six principal lines of\nmigration, three of them belonging to that multifarious progeny of Ham,\nin which he seems to include both the Turanian and Negroid types of our\nordinary classifications, as well as some of the brown and yellow races.\n\nOne of the lines of affiliation of Ham leads eastward and is not traced;\nbut if the Cushite people, who are said to have gone to the land which\nin earlier antediluvian times was that of 'gold and bedolach and shoham\nstone,' that is, along the fertile valley of Susiana, were those\nprimitive people, preceding the Elamites of history, who are said to\nhave spoken an agglutinate language,[78] then we have at least one\nstage of this migration. A second line leads west to the eastern coast\nof the Mediterranean, to Egypt and to North Africa. A third passes\nsouth-westward through Southern Arabia and across the Red Sea into\ninterior Africa. To the sons of Japhet are ascribed two lines of\nmigration, one through Asia Minor and the northern coasts of the\nMediterranean; another north-west, around the Black Sea. The Semites\nwould seem to have been a less wandering people at the first, but\nsubsequently to have encroached on and mingled with the Hamites,\nand especially on that western line of migration leading to the\nMediterranean. All this can be gathered from undisputed national names\nin the several lines of migration above sketched, without touching on\nthe more obscure and doubtful names or referring to tribes which\nremained near the original centre. We must, however, inquire a little\nmore particularly into the movements bearing on Palestine and Egypt.\n\n[78] Sayce (_Hibbert Lectures_) and Bagster's _Records of the Past_.\nInscriptions of Cyrus published in the last volume of the latter appear\nto set at rest the vexed questions relating to early Elam. It would seem\nthat in the earliest times Cushites and Semitic Elamites contended for\nthe fertile plains and the mountains east of the Tigris, and were\nfinally subjugated by Japhetic Medes and Persians. Thus this region\nfirst formed a part of the Cushite Nimrodic empire (Genesis ii. 11, x.\n8); it then became the seat of a conquering Elamite power (Genesis xiv.\n1 to 4); and was finally a central part of the Medo-Persian empire. All\nthis agrees with the Bible and the inscriptions, as well as in the main\nwith Herodotus.\n\nSo far as the writer in Genesis is informed, he does not seem to be\naware of any sons of Japhet having colonised Palestine or Egypt. It was\nonly in the later reflux of population that the sons of Javan gained a\nfoothold in these regions. They were both colonised primarily by Hamites\nand subsequently intruded on by Semites.\n\nHere a little prehistoric interlude noted by the writer, or by an author\nwhom he quotes, gives a valuable clue not often attended to. The oldest\nson of Ham, Cush, begat Nimrod, the mighty hunter and prehistoric\nconqueror, who organised the first empire in that Euphratean plain which\nsubsequently became the nucleus of the Babylonian and Assyrian power.\nThe site of his kingdom cannot be doubted, for cities well known in\nhistoric times, Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, were included in it, as\nwell as probably Nineveh. The first point which I wish to make in this\nconnection is that we cannot suppose this to have been a Semitic empire.\nIts nucleus must have been composed of Nimrod's tribal connections, who\nwere Hamites and presumably Cushites. He is, indeed, said to have gone\ninto or invaded the land of Ashur, and if by this is meant the Semitic\nAshur, he must have been hostile to these people, as indeed the\nChaldeans were in later times. The next point to be noted is that the\nNimrodic empire must have originated at a time when the Cushites were\nstill strong on the Lower Euphrates, and before that great movement of\nthese people which carried them across Arabia to the Upper Nile, and\nultimately caused the name Cush or Kesh to be almost exclusively applied\nto the Ethiopians of Africa. Now is this history, or mere legend?\n\n[Illustration: HEAD ILLUSTRATING THE MOST ANCIENT TYPE OF CUSHITE\nTURANIAN, FROM TEL-LOH (after de Sarzec). The cap is perhaps an\nimitation of the antediluvian shell-caps, like that of the 'man of\nMentorie.']\n\nThe answer of arch\u00e6ology is not doubtful. We have in the earliest\nmonuments of Chaldea evidence that there was a pre-Semitic population,\nto whom, indeed, it is believed that the Semites who invaded the country\nowed much of their civilisation. A recent writer has said that 'outside\nof the Bible we know nothing of Nimrod,' but others see a trace of him\nin the legendary hero of Chaldean tradition, Gisdubar or Gingamos, while\nothers think that, as Na-marod, he may be the original of Merodach, the\ntutelary god of Babylon. Independently of this, there was certainly an\nearly Chaldean and 'Turanian' empire, which must have had some founder,\nwhatever his name, and which was not Semitic or Aryan, and therefore\nwhat an early writer would call Hamitic. Further, our author traces from\nthis region the great Cushite line of migration, which includes such\nwell-known names as Seba, Sabta, Sheba and Dedan, into Arabia on the way\nto Africa. Here the Egyptian monuments take up the tale, and inform us\nof a South Arabian and East African people, the people of Pun or Punt,\nrepresented as like to themselves and to the Kesh or Ethiopians, and who\nthus correspond to the Arabian Cushites of Genesis. In accordance with\nthis the Abyssinian of to-day is scarcely distinguishable from the old\nPunites as represented on the Egyptian monuments.[79]\n\n[79] The recent discoveries of Glaser with reference to the early\ncivilisation of Southern Arabia also bear on this point.\n\nThus the primitive Cushite kingdom and one of the great lines of Cushite\nmigration are established by ancient monuments. Let it be further\nobserved that, as represented in Egypt, these primitive Ethiopians were\nnot black, but of a reddish or brownish colour, like the Egyptians\nthemselves, and that their migration explains the resemblance of the\ncustoms and religion of early Egypt to those of Babylonia, and the\nascription by the Egyptians of the origin of their gods to the land of\nPun.\n\nThe remaining sons of Ham, Mizraim, Put and Canaan, are not mentioned in\nconnection with the old Nimrodic kingdom, and seem to have moved\nwestward at a very early period. They were already 'in the land,' and\napparently constituted a considerable citizen population before the\nmigration of Abraham.\n\nMizraim represents the twin populations of the delta and Lower Egypt,\nand the Tel-el-Amarna tablets inform us that long before the time of\nMoses Mitzor was the ordinary name of Egypt, while we know that its\nearly population was closely allied in features and language to the\nCushites.\n\nCanaan[80] heads a central line of migration, and Sidon and Cheth are\nsaid to have been his leading sons. The first represents the Ph\u0153nician\nmaritime power of Northern Syria, the second that great nation known to\nthe Egyptians as Kheta and to the Assyrians as Khatti, whose territory\nextended from Carchemish on the Euphrates through the plain of\nCoele-Syria to Hebron in Southern Palestine, and not improbably into the\ndelta. They were a people whose language was allied to that of Cushite\nChaldea,[81] whose features were of a coarser type than those of their\nmore southern _confr\u00e8res_, and who, according to the Egyptian annals,\nwere closely allied with the Amorites, Jebusites, and other people\nidentified with Canaan in the Old Testament. The Cheta, at one time\nknown only as the sons of Heth in the Old Testament, may be said in our\ntime to have experienced a sudden resurrection, and now bulk so largely\nin the minds of arch\u00e6ologists that their importance is in danger of\nbeing exaggerated.\n\n[80] Canaan with our old historian is the name of a man, but it came to\ndesignate first the 'low country' or coast region of Western Palestine,\nand then the whole of Palestine.\n\n[81] Conder and others call it Turanian.\n\nA significant note is added: 'Afterwards were the families of the\nCanaanites scattered abroad.' How could this be? Their line of migration\nand settlement led directly to the great sea, and was hemmed in by that\nof the Japhetites on the north and of the Cushites on the south; but\nthey made the sea their highway, and soon there was no coast from end to\nend of the Mediterranean, and far along the European and African shores\nof the Atlantic, that was not familiar with the Ph\u0153nician Canaanite. But\nit may be said these Ph\u0153nicians were a Semitic people. They certainly\nspoke a Semitic language allied to the Hebrew, but what right have we to\nattribute Semitic languages solely to the descendants of the Biblical\nShem? Even if these languages originated with them they may have spread\nto other peoples, as we know they replaced the old Turanian speech of\nBabylonia, just as the Arabic has extinguished other languages in Egypt\nitself. In whatever way the Ph\u0153nicians acquired a Semitic tongue, in\nphysical character they were not Semitic, but closely allied to the\nHittites, the Philistines, and the people of Mitzor, or Egypt. The\nEgyptian sculptures prove this, and the celebrated Capuan bust of\nHannibal reminds us of the features of the old Hyksos kings of Egypt,\nwho were no doubt of Hamite or Turanian stock.\n\nFinally, what relation does the record in Genesis x. bear to the\nprehistoric peoples of the neanthropic age? These must have been in the\nmain the advanced colonists and straggling adventurers of the leading\nlines of migration. We find such people recorded in the Pentateuch, and\nalso in the caverns and shelters of Ph\u0153nicia, as preceding the\nCanaanites in Syria; and such nomads and hunters must have streamed out\ninto Europe and Africa in advance of the more settled and slowly\nadvancing agricultural peoples. At first they must have been few, rude,\nand users of stone implements only, living chiefly by hunting and\nfishing; but some of them may have taken with them domestic animals and\nseeds of grains, and so have established here and there civilised\ncommunities. In later times, new colonists and commerce introduced among\nthem bronze and iron and more advanced arts. Thus these early\nneanthropic peoples belonged to one or other of the great lines of\nmigration indicated in our old record; though by virtue of physical\nchanges and dialectic differences induced by isolation and new\nconditions of life, and which in such circumstances would arise with a\nrapidity unexampled in later times, as well as the want of historical\nannals, it has in many cases become difficult or impossible precisely to\ntrace their affinities. Even in Palestine, at the time of the Exodus,\npeoples of this kind (Horites, Avvites, &c.)[82] were known, whose\naffinities had been lost; and it is not necessary to suppose that these\nwere remnants of antediluvians, since what we know in modern times of\nthe wanderers on the outskirts of great migrations sufficiently accounts\nfor their existence.\n\nThis is, I think, a fair summary of the testimony of the writer of\nGenesis x., as compared with the general evidence of history and\narch\u00e6ology. But we have something further to learn from what may be\ncalled the fossil remains of prehistoric peoples as embodied in the\nEgyptian monuments, which are conversant with all the nations around the\neastern end of the Mediterranean.\n\nThe Egyptians divided the nations known to them into four groups, of\nwhich they have given us several representations in tombs and public\nbuildings. One of these consisted of their own race. The other three\nwere as follows: (1) Southern peoples mostly of dark complexions,\nranging from light brown to black. These included the Cushites, Punites,\nand negroes. (2) Western peoples mostly of fair complexions inhabiting\nthe islands and northern coasts of the Mediterranean, the 'Hanebu' or\nchiefs of the north or of the isles, with some populations of North\nAfrica, the so-called white Lybians and Maxyans. (3) Northern or\nnorth-eastern peoples, or those of Syria and the neighbouring parts of\nWestern Asia, Amorites, Hittites, Edomites, Arabs, &c., usually\nrepresented as of yellowish complexion.\n\n[82] Deuteronomy ii.\n\nThe first of these divisions evidently corresponds with the line of\nCushite migration of Genesis, extending from Shinar through Southern\nArabia, Nubia, and Ethiopia, and of which the negroes are apparently\ndegraded members pushed in advance of the others, while the populations\nof Pun and Kesh, the southern Arabians and their relatives in Africa,\nclosely resemble, as figured in the monuments, the Egyptians themselves.\n\nThe second group of the Egyptian classification represents those\nso-called Aryan peoples of Europe and its islands, and parts of Northern\nAfrica, of whom the Greeks are a typical race, and who in Genesis are\nsaid to have possessed the 'Isles of the Gentiles'; though in the wave\nof migration from the east they were in many places preceded by\nnon-Aryan races, Pelasgians, Iberians, &c., possibly wandering Hamitic\ntribes, while they were also invaded by that scattering abroad of the\nPh\u0153nician Canaanites referred to in Genesis. They are represented in the\nmonuments as people with European features, fair complexions, and\nsometimes fair hair and blue eyes.\n\nThe third group is the most varied of the whole, because its seat in\nSyria was a meeting-place of many tribes. Its most ancient members, the\nPh\u0153nicians and allied nations, were, according to the monuments, men\nresembling the Egyptian and Cushite type, and these, no doubt, were\nthose pre-Semitic and prehistoric nations of Canaan referred to in the\nremarkable notes regarding the Emim, Zuzim, &c., in the second chapter\nof Deuteronomy, which may be regarded as a foot-note to the Toledoth of\nGenesis x. These aborigines were invaded by men of different types.\nFirst, we find in the monuments that the Amorites of the Palestine hills\nwere a fair people with somewhat European features, like some of the\npresent populations of the Lebanon. When returning over the Lebanon in\n1884 we met a large company of men with camels and donkeys carrying\nmerchandise. They were fair-complexioned and with brown hair, and from\ntheir features I might have supposed they were Scottish Highlanders. I\nwas told they were Druses, and they were evidently much like, as are\nindeed many of the modern fellaheen of the Palestine hills, the Amar as\nthey are pictured in Egypt. These white peoples, though reckoned in the\nBible as Hamites, may have had a mixture of Aryan blood. It is to be\nnoted here that the Amorite chiefs, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, named as\nconfederate with Abraham, have non-Semitic names.\n\nA later inroad was that of the Hittites, evidently a people having\naffinity with the Philistines and Egyptians, but whose chiefs and nobles\nseem to have been of Tartar blood, like the modern Turks. The names of\ntheir kings seem also to have been non-Semitic. Later, the great\nwestward migration of Semitic peoples, to which that of Abraham himself\nbelongs, not only introduced the Israelites but many nations of Semitic\nor mixed blood, the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Ishmaelites, &c.,\nwhom we find figuring in the Egyptian monuments as yellow or brownish\npeople with a Jewish style of features, and all of whom, as mentioned\nabove, would be known to the Egyptians and Canaanites as 'Hebrews.'[83]\n\n[83] This is independent of the question whether we regard the name Eber\nas that of an ancestor, or merely of men from beyond the Euphrates.\n\nThus the monuments confirm the Jewish record, and the confusion which\nsome ethnologists have introduced into the matter arises from their\napplying in an arbitrary manner the special tests of physical and\nphilological characteristics, and neglecting to distinguish the primary\nmigrations of men from subsequent intrusions.\n\nAnother singular point of agreement is that, just as in Egypt we find\nmen civilised from the first, so we find elsewhere. In Egypt writing and\nliterature date from before the time of Abraham. In like manner we have\nno monumental evidence of any time when the Accadian people of Babylonia\nwere destitute of writing and science, and we now find that there were\nlearned scribes in all the cities of Canaan, and that the Ph\u0153nicians and\nSouthern Arabians knew their alphabet ages before Moses, while even the\nGreeks seem to have known alphabetic writing long before the Mosaic\nage.[84] These men, in short, were descendants of the survivors of the\nNoachian Deluge, and therefore civilised from the first; and though we\nhave no certain evidence of letters before the Flood, except the\nstatement of the author of the Babylonian deluge tablets, that Noah hid\nwritten archives at Sippara before going into the ark, yet it is quite\ncertain that men who could build Noah's ship are not unworthy ancestors\nof the Ph\u0153nician seamen, who probably launched their barks on the\nMediterranean before the death of Noah himself. Thus, whatever value we\nmay attach to the record in Genesis, we cannot refuse to admit that it\nis thoroughly consistent with itself and with the testimony of the\noldest monuments of Asia and Africa, as it is also with the evidence of\nthe geological changes of the pleistocene and early modern epoch.\n\n[84] Petrie, _Illahun, Kahun and Garob_, 1891.\n\nIn like manner the Egyptian inscriptions of the conquests of Thothmes\nIII. give us a pre-Mosaic record of Palestinian geography corresponding\nwith that of the Hebrew conquest, and the pictures of sieges coincide\nwith the excavations of Petrie at Lachish in restoring those Canaanite\ntowns, 'walled up to heaven,' which excited the fear of the Israelites.\nNeither can we scoff at the illiteracy of men who were carrying on\ndiplomatic correspondence in written despatches before Genesis itself\nwas compiled. Nor can we doubt the military prowess of these people,\ntheir chariot forces, their sculptured idols and images, their wealth of\ngold and silver, their agricultural and artistic skill. All these are\namply proved by the monuments of the Egyptians and the Hittites.[85]\n\n[85] Bliss, in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund\nfor April 1892, figures many interesting objects, found in the lower or\nAmorite stratum of the mound of Tell-el-Hesy (Lachish). We have here a\nbronze battle-axe and heads of javelins that may have been used against\nthe soldiers of Joshua, and axes and pottery of equally early date,\nalong with multitudes of flint flakes, arrow heads, &c., used at this\nearly time. It is to be hoped that the further exploration of this site\nmay yield yet more interesting results.\n\nPalestine thus presents a prehistoric past parallel with the earlier\nyears of Egypt. It has, however, a still earlier period, for in\nPalestine, as stated in a previous chapter, we have evidence of the\nexistence of man long before the dispersion of the sons of Noah. To\nappreciate this evidence, we must go back, as in the case of Egypt, to\nthe pre-human period. All along the coast of Palestine, from Jaffa to\nthe northern limit of old Ph\u0153nicia, the geological traveller sees\nevidence of a recent submergence, in the occurrence of sandstone,\ngravel, and limestone with shells and other marine remains of species\nstill living in the Mediterranean. These are the relics of that\npleistocene submergence already referred to, in which the Nile valley\nwas an arm of the sea and Africa was an island. No evidence has been\nfound of the residence of man in Palestine in this period, when, as the\nsea washed the very bases of the hills, and the plains were under water,\nit was certainly not very well suited to his abode. The climate was also\nprobably more severe than at present, and the glaciers of Lebanon must\nhave extended nearly to the sea. This was the time of the so-called\nglacial period in Western Europe.\n\nThis, however, was succeeded by that post-glacial period in which, as\nalready explained, the area of the Mediterranean was much smaller than\nat present, and the land encroached far upon the bed of the sea. This,\nthe second continental period, is that in which man makes his first\nundoubted appearance in Europe, and we have evidence of the same kind in\nSyria, to which I have already directed attention in the description of\nthe caverns of the Lebanon, in Chapter IV.\n\nThat the occupancy of these caves is very ancient is proved by the fact\nthat the old Egyptian conquerors, who cut a road for themselves over\nthese precipices before the Exodus, seem to have found them in the same\nstate as at present, while farther south ancient Syrian tombs are\nexcavated in similar bone breccias. But there is better evidence than\nthis. The bones and teeth in these caves belong not to the animals which\nhave inhabited the Lebanon in historic times, but to creatures like the\nhairy rhinoceros and the bison, now extinct, which could not have lived\nin this region since the comparatively modern period in which the\nMediterranean resumed its dominion over that great plain between\nPh\u0153nicia and Cyprus. This we know had been submerged long before the\nfirst migrations of the Hamites into Ph\u0153nicia, even before the entrance\nof those comparatively rude tribes which seem to have inhabited the\ncountry before the Ph\u0153nician colonisation.[86] Unfortunately no burials\nof these early men have yet been found, and perhaps the Lebanon caves\nwere only their summer sojourns on hunting expeditions. They were,\nhowever, probably of the same stock with the races (the Cro-magnon and\nCanstadt) of the so-called mammoth age in Western Europe, who have left\nsimilar remains. Thus we can carry man in the Lebanon back to that\nabsolutely prehistoric age which preceded the Noachian Deluge and the\ndispersion of the Noachid\u00e6.[87]\n\n[86] Some of these tribes also lived in caves, as that of Ant Elias, but\nthe animals they consumed are those now living in the Lebanon.\n\n[87] Dawson, _Trans. Vict. Institute_, May 1884; also _Modern Science in\nBible Lands_.\n\nIf in imagination we suppose ourselves to visit the caves of the\nNahr-el-Kelb pass, when they were inhabited by these early men, we\nshould find them to be tall muscular people, clothed in skins, armed\nwith flint-tipped javelins and flint hatchets, and cooking the animals\ncaught in the chase in the mouths of their caves. They were probably\nexamples of the ruder and less civilised members of that powerful and\nenergetic antediluvian population which had apparently perfected so many\narts, and the remains of whose more advanced communities are now buried\nin the silt of the sea bottom. If we looked out westward on what is now\nthe Mediterranean, we should see a wide wooded or grassy plain as far as\neye could reach, and perhaps might discern vast herds of elephant,\nrhinoceros, and bison wandering over these plains in their annual\nmigrations. Possibly on the far margin of the land we might see the\nsmoke of antediluvian towns long ago deeply submerged in the sea.\n\nThe great diluvial catastrophe which closed this period, and finally\nintroduced the present geographical conditions, we have seen good reason\nto identify with the historical Deluge, and the old peoples of the age\nof the mammoth and rhinoceros were antediluvians, and must have perished\nfrom the earth before the earliest migration of the Beni Noah.\n\nPutting together the results referred to in the preceding pages, we may\nrestore the prehistoric ages of the Eastern Mediterranean under the\nfollowing statements:\n\n1. In the period immediately preceding human occupancy, the land of\nPalestine, Egypt, and Arabia participated in the great pleistocene\ndepression, accompanied by a rigorous climate.\n\n2. The next stage was one of continental elevation, in which the borders\nof the Mediterranean were dry land, and vast plains in this basin, and\neven in the Western Atlantic, were open to human migration. In this age\npal\u00e6ocosmic men took up their abode all over Western Asia, Europe, and\nNorthern Africa, and probably occupied broad lands since submerged. At\nthis period the region was inhabited by the mammoth, rhinoceros, bison,\nand other large animals now altogether or locally extinct.\n\n3. The earlier part of this post-glacial or antediluvian period was one\nof mild climatal conditions, followed by a slight return of the\nconditions of the previous glacial age.\n\n4. The period was terminated by a great submergence, accompanied with\nvast destruction of animal and human life; and of comparatively short\nduration, corresponding to the historical Deluge.\n\n5. From this depression the more limited continents of the modern period\nwere elevated, and man again overspread them from his primitive seats in\nthe Euphratean region, as recorded in the tenth chapter of Genesis.\n\n6. In this early migration the Biblical Hamites, forming one of the\ngroups of men vaguely known as Turanian, first spread themselves over\nPalestine and Egypt, and founded the early Ph\u0153nician, Canaanite,\nMizraimite, and Cushite tribes and nations.\n\n7. In early historic times Semitic peoples, Hebrews and others from the\neast, and Mongoloid peoples from the north, migrated into Palestine and\ndominated and mixed with the primitive tribes, finally penetrating into\nEgypt and establishing there the dominion known as that of the Hyksos.\nThe historical Moabites, Ammonites, Ishmaelites, and Hittites were\npeoples of this character, having a substratum of Hamite blood with\naristocracies of Semitic or Tartar origin.\n\nIt will be observed that while arch\u00e6ological evidence tends to\nillustrate and corroborate that wonderful collection of early historical\ndocuments contained in the Book of Genesis, and to prove their great\nantiquity, on the other hand these documents prove to be the most\nprecious sources of information as to the antediluvian age, the great\nFlood, the earliest dispersion of men, the old Nimrodic empire, the\nconnections of Asiatic and African civilisation, and other matters\nconnected with the origins of the oldest nations, respecting which we\nhave little other written history.\n\nWe thus learn that, relatively to Bible history, there is no prehistoric\nage, since it carries us back beyond the Deluge to the origin of man, so\nthat we might properly restrict this term in its narrower signification\nto those parts of the world not covered by this primitive history. It is\ntrue that a tide of criticism hostile to the integrity of Genesis has\nbeen rising for some years; but it seems to beat vainly against a solid\nrock, and the ebb has now evidently set in. The battle of historical and\nlinguistic criticism may indeed rage for a time over the history and\ndate of the Mosaic law, but in so far as Genesis is concerned it has\nbeen practically decided by scientific exploration.\n\nSince writing the preceding pages I have met with a remarkable paper\nby Mr. Horatio Hale in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of\nCanada_.[88] It is one which should commend itself to the study of\nevery Biblical scholar and arch\u00e6ologist; but is contained in a\nperiodical which perhaps meets the eyes of few of them. In this paper\nhe maintains the importance of language as a ground of anthropological\nclassification, and then uses his wide knowledge of the languages of\nAmerican aborigines, and other rude races, to show that the grammatical\ncomplexity and logical perfection of these languages implies a high\nintellectual capacity in their original framers, and that where such\ncomplex and perfect languages are spoken by very rude tribes like the\nAustralian aborigines, they originated with cultivated and intellectual\npeoples--in the case of the Australian, with the civilised primitive\nDravidians of India. He thus shows that languages, like alphabets, have\nundergone a process of degradation, so that those of modern times are\nless perfect exponents of thought than those which preceded them, and\nthat primitive man in his earliest state must have been endowed with as\nhigh intellectual powers as any of his descendants.\n\n[88] Vol. IX. Sec. II. 1891.\n\nOn similar grounds he shows that it is not in the outlying barbarous\nraces that we are to look for truly primitive man, since here we have\nmerely degraded types, and that the primitive centres of man and\nlanguage must have been in the old historic lands of Western Asia and\nNorthern Africa. On this view the time necessary for the development of\nthe arts of civilisation and of extensive colonisation would not be\ngreat. 'In five centuries a single human pair planted in a fertile oasis\nmight have given origin to a people of five hundred thousand souls,\nnumerous enough to have sent out emigrations to the nearest inviting\nlands.' The same lapse of time would have sufficed to develop\nagriculture, to domesticate animals, and to make some progress in\narchitectural and other arts of life. He quotes the remarkable passage\nof Reclus[89] as to the agency of woman in the inventions of early art,\nand shows that this accords with more modern experience among the less\ncivilised nations. It is obvious that all this tends to bring scientific\nanthropology into the closest relation with the old Biblical history,\nthough Hale, in deference, perhaps, to modern prejudices, does not refer\nto this.\n\n[89] _Primitive Folk_ (Contemporary Science Series), p. 58.\n\nIn the passage quoted by Hale, Reclus says: 'It is to woman that mankind\nowes all that has made us men.' Following this hint of the ingenious\nFrench writer, we may imagine the first man and woman inhabiting some\nfertile region, rich in fruits and other natural products, and\nsubsisting at first on the uncultivated bounty of nature. With the birth\nof their first child, perhaps before, would come the need of shelter\neither in some dry cavern or booth of poles and leaves or bark, carpeted\nperhaps with moss or boughs of pine. This would be the first 'home,'\nwith the woman for its housekeeper. We may imagine the man bringing to\nit the lamb or kid whose dam he had killed, and the woman, with motherly\ninstinct, pitying the little orphan and training it to be a domestic\npet, the first of tamed animals. She, too, would store grain, seeds and\nberries for domestic use, and some of these germinating would produce\npatches of grain, or shrubs, or fruit trees around the hut. Noticing\nthese and protecting them, she would be the first gardener and\norchardist. The woman and her children might add to the cultivated\nplants or domesticated quadrupeds and birds; and the man would be\ninduced, in the intervals of hunting and fishing, to guard, protect, and\nfence them.\n\nWhen the boys grew up, to one of them might be assigned the care of the\nsheep and goats, to the other the culture of the little farm, while they\nmight aid their father in erecting a better and more artistic\nhabitation, the first attempt at architecture, and in introducing\nartificial irrigation to render their field more fertile. Is not this\nlittle romance of M. Elie Reclus perfectly in harmony with the old\nfamiliar story in Genesis, and also with the most recent results of\nmodern science?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nSUMMARY OF RESULTS\n\n\nIt may be well, in conclusion, to sum up the general truths we\nhave arrived at in relation to the place of man in the great and\nlong-continued drama of the earth's geological history.\n\n1. We have found no link of derivation connecting man with the lower\nanimals which preceded him. He appears before us as a new departure in\ncreation, without any direct relation to the instinctive life of the\nlower animals. The earliest men are no less men than their descendants,\nand up to the extent of their means, inventors, innovators, and\nintroducers of new modes of life, just as much as they. We have not even\nbeen able as yet to trace man back to the harmless golden age. As we\nfind him in the caves and gravels he is already a fallen man, out of\nharmony with his environment and the foe of his fellow creatures,\ncontriving against them instruments of destruction more fatal than those\nfurnished by nature to the carnivorous wild beasts. Yet we would fain\nbelieve in an Edenic age of innocence; and physiological probability, as\nwell as the old story in Genesis, demands that we should suppose a\nprimitive condition in which man, careless and happy, should subsist on\nthe spontaneous bounty of nature in some favoured 'garden of the Lord.'\n\n     _Scheme of possible Correlation of the Geological and Historical\n     Records as to Early Man, as the Facts appear in the present Stage\n     of Investigation, May 1894._\n\n                                                      { Semitic\n            { Truch\u00e8re or Prot-Iberian Race           { Turanian\n            {                                         { Aryan\n  Primitive {\n    Man     { Mixed Races, Cro-magnon, &c.    }\n            {                                 } Submergence\n            { Canstadt Race                   }\n\n            { Sethites                                { Shem\n            {                                         { Ham\n  Adam      { Mixed Races, Nephelim, &c.      } Noah  { Japhet\n            {                                 }\n            { Cainites                        } Deluge\n\n2. If we inquire as to the nature of the interval which separates man\nfrom the lower animals, we find that it exists with reference both to\nhis rational and physical nature. With respect to the first we may\naffirm in man the existence of a lower (psychical) intelligence, similar\nto that of the inferior animals, and of a spiritual nature allying him\nwith higher intelligences, and with God Himself. Rightly considered,\nthis places the doctrine of creation in a very firm position. Those who\ndeny it must adopt one of two alternatives. Either they must refuse to\nadmit the evidence in man of any nature higher than that of brutes--a\nconclusion which common sense, as well as mental science, must always\nrefuse to admit--or they must attempt to bridge over the 'chasm,' as it\nhas been called, which separates the instinctive nature of the animal\nfrom the rational and moral nature of man--an effort confessedly futile.\n\n3. As to the body of man, the case is different, but still perfectly in\nharmony with the idea of his higher nature. Man, as to his body, is\nconfessedly an animal, of the earth earthy. He is also a member of the\nprovince _vertebrata_, and the class _mammalia_; but in that class he\nconstitutes not only a distinct species and genus, but even a distinct\nfamily, or order. In other words, he is the sole species of his genus,\nand of his family, or order. He is thus separated, by a great gap, from\nall the animals nearest to him; and even if we admit the doctrine, as\nyet unproved, of the derivation of one species from another in the case\nof the lower animals, we are unable to supply the 'missing links' which\nwould be required to connect man with any group of inferior animals.\nThis physical distinctness has also a special significance, inasmuch as\nit depends on certain negative peculiarities such as the absence of\nclothing, of natural weapons of attack and defence, as well as on the\npositive properties of the erect posture, the hands adapted to various\nkinds of manipulation, and the special sensory gifts. Thus viewed in\nrelation to his environment, his wants as well as his possessions in\nregard to structures and powers, would be fatal to any creature not\npossessed of his intelligence, and we cannot conceive how such\nprivations or such gifts could spontaneously arise in nature.\n\n4. No fact of science is more certainly established than the recency of\nman in geological time. Not only do we find no trace of his remains in\nthe older geological formations, but we find no remains even of the\nanimals nearest to him; and the conditions of the world in those periods\nseem to unfit it for the residence of man. If, following the usual\ngeological system, we divide the whole history of the earth into four\ngreat periods, extending from the oldest rocks known to us, the eozoic,\nor arch\u00e6an, up to the modern, we find remains of man, or his works,\nonly in the latest of the four, and in the later part of this. In point\nof fact, there is no indisputable proof of the presence of man until we\nreach the early modern period. This is, no doubt, what was to have been\nexpected on the supposition of the orderly development of the chain of\nanimal life in the long geologic eons; but it is not by any means the\nonly hypothesis that was possible when, for example, the Book of Genesis\nwas written. A more fanciful cosmologist might at that time have given\nprecedence to man, and might have supposed that the other animals were\nproduced later, and for his benefit, or his injury. This is the view of\nthe sacred writer himself with respect to the local group of animals\nintended to be in immediate association with the first man. Restricted\nin this way, the statement of a group of animals created with man in his\nearliest abode is not contradictory to the order in Genesis first, nor\nscientifically improbable. We have seen that in any case the deductions\nfrom geology are in harmony with the earliest revelations made to the\nhuman mind on the subject, and in accordance with all the later facts of\nactual history.\n\n5. The absolute date of the first appearance of man cannot perhaps be\nfixed within a few years or centuries, either by human chronology or by\nthe science of the earth. It would seem, however, that the Bible\nhistory, as well as such hints as we can gather from the history of\nother nations, limits us to two or three thousand years before the\nDeluge of Noah, while some estimates of the antiquity of man, based on\nphysical changes or ancient history, or on philology, greatly exceed\nthis limit. If the earliest men were those of the river gravels and\ncaves, men of the 'mammoth age,' or of the 'pal\u00e6olithic' or pal\u00e6ocosmic\nperiod, we can form some definite ideas as to their possible antiquity.\nThey colonised the continents immediately after the elevation of the\nland from the great subsidence which closed the pleistocene or glacial\nperiod, in what has been called the 'continental' period of the\npost-glacial age, because the new lands then raised out of the sea\nexceeded in extent those which we have now. We have, as stated in a\nprevious chapter, some measures of the date of this great continental\nelevation, and know that its distance from our time must fall within\nabout eight thousand years. Many indications, both in Europe and\nAmerica, lead to the belief that it is physically impossible that man\ncould have colonised the northern hemisphere at an earlier date than\nthis geologically recent continental period.\n\n6. There is but one species of man, though many races and varieties; and\nthese races or varieties seem to have developed themselves at a very\nearly time and have shown a remarkable fixity in their later history.\nThere is reason to believe, however, from various physiological facts,\nthat this is a very general law of varietal forms, which are observed to\nappear rapidly or suddenly, and then in favourable circumstances to be\npropagated continuously. It would seem also to apply to the introduction\nof forms regarded as species, since it is not unusual to find a genus at\nor near its origin represented by its maximum number of specific forms.\n\n7. The precise locality of the origin of man can be defined on probable\ngrounds as in a temperate region, supplied with the vegetable\nproductions most useful to him in a natural state, and free from\ndestructive animal rivals. We can scarcely suppose that this locality\ncan have been in any of those parts of the world in which man finds the\ngreatest difficulty in subsisting, or becomes most degraded, though this\nparadoxical view has been held by some arch\u00e6ologists. It must rather\nhave been in some fertile and salubrious region of the northern\nhemisphere; and probability as well as tradition points to those regions\nin South-Western Asia which have not only been the earliest historical\nabodes of man, but are also the centres of the animals and plants most\nuseful to him. It is interesting to note here that H\u00e6ckel, on purely\nphysical grounds, decides against Europe, Africa, Australia, and\nAmerica, and concludes that 'most circumstances indicate Southern Asia.'\n\n8. It is to be observed, however, that the diluvial interlude gives a\ndouble origin of man; but the historical accounts of the neocosmic\ndispersion, as we have already seen, refer us in this case also to the\nsame regions of South-Western Asia. The traditions which ascribe human\norigin to a 'Mountain of the North' refer to the second dispersion, and\ncoincide with the Ararat of Genesis and the 'Mountain of the North' on\nwhich the ship of Hasisadra was supposed by the Chaldeans to have\ngrounded.\n\n9. We are now in a position to correlate the historical Deluge with the\ngreat geographical changes which closed the palanthropic age. This, when\nregarded as an established fact, furnishes the solution of many of the\nmost disputed questions of anthropology. The misuse of the Deluge in the\nearly history of geology, in employing it to account for changes that\ntook place long before the advent of man, certainly should not cause us\nto neglect its legitimate uses, when these arise in the progress of\ninvestigation. It is evident that if this correlation be accepted as\nprobable, it must modify many views now held as to the antiquity of man.\nIn that case, the modern rubble spread over plateaus and in river\nvalleys, far above the reach of the present floods, may be accounted\nfor, not by the ordinary action of the existing streams, but by the\nabnormal action of currents of water diluvial in their character.\nFurther, since the historical Deluge cannot have been of very long\nduration, the physical changes separating the deposits containing the\nremains of pal\u00e6ocosmic men from those of later date would, in like\nmanner, be accounted for, not by slow processes of subsidence,\nelevation, and erosion, but by causes of a more abrupt and cataclysmic\ncharacter.\n\nFinally, it has been the tendency of modern geological and\narch\u00e6ological discovery to attach more and more value and importance to\nthe ancient records of the human race, and especially to those precious\ndocuments which have been preserved to our time in the Book of Genesis.\n\nWe have merely glanced cursorily at a few of the salient points of the\nrelation of the primitive history of man in Genesis to modern scientific\ndiscovery. Many other details might have been adduced as tending to show\nsimilar coincidences of these two distinct lines of evidence. Enough\nhas, however, been said to indicate the remarkable manner in which the\nhistory in Genesis has anticipated modern discovery, and to show that\nthis ancient book is in every way trustworthy, and as remote as possible\nfrom the myths and legends of ancient heathenism, while it shows the\nhistorical origin of beliefs which in more or less corrupted forms lie\nat the foundations of the oldest religions of the Gentiles, and find\ntheir true significance in that of the Hebrews. To the Christian the\nrecord in Genesis has a still higher value, as constituting those\nhistorical groundworks of the plan of salvation to which our Lord\nHimself so often referred, and on which He founded so much of His\nteaching.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  A\n\n  Adam, description of, 64\n  Adon, the name, 180\n  Akkadian kingdom, foundation of, 108\n  Alphabets, early, 108\n  Amunoph III., 177\n  Amunoph IV., 177\n  Anakim, the, 65\n  Animals, remains of, 23, 30, 38, 43, 45, 46, 48, 50, 74, 96, 98\n  Antediluvians, identification of, 125\n  Anthropic age, definition of, 17;\n    events of, 39\n  Anthropology, 16\n  Arch\u00e6an age, the, 19\n  Ark, the, description of, 135\n  Arrow-headed characters, use of, 108\n  Artemis, 160\n  Aten, worship of, 177\n  Atlantis, fable of, 156\n  Auriferous gravel, finds in, 34\n\n  B\n\n  Bears, cave, 46\n  Beni Elohim, 132\n  Beni ha Adam, 132\n  Bones, human, gnawed, 47\n  Boule, on deposits at Schweizersbild, 87\n  Britain, early inhabitants of, 103\n  Broca, on skulls, 61\n  Burials, discoveries of, 56\n\n  C\n\n  Cain, the race of, 131\n  Canaan, migration of, 193\n  Canstadt race, the, 51, 80;\n    age of, 70;\n    condition of, 75;\n    interments of, 77;\n    skulls of, 81\n  Carthaillac on palanthropic age, 70;\n    on the mortuary customs of, 77\n  Carving, specimens of, 49\n  Castelnedolo, skeleton at, 29\n  Cave dwellers, 48;\n    their food, 49\n  Caverns, various, 42\n  Celt\u00e6, the, description of, 104\n  Cenozoic age, the, 20;\n    changes of, 24;\n    events of, 39;\n    relations of, 84\n  Chaldean version of the Deluge, 137;\n    creation tablets, 107;\n    Genesis quoted, 113\n  Cheth, children of, 167\n  Chipped Stone age, the, 69\n  Chronometers, geological, 89\n  Civilisation, early postdiluvian, 118\n  Clichy skull, the, 60\n  Climate of the pliocene, 25;\n    of the eocene, 27;\n    changes of, 35, 36;\n    of the post-glacial age, 36;\n    of the palanthropic age, 38, 40, 171\n  Creation, the, order of, in Genesis, 106, 112, 114;\n    Chaldean account of, 112\n  Cresswell caves, description of, 95\n  Cro-magnon cave, the, 51\n  Cro-magnon race, the, 51;\n    skeletons of, 53;\n    skulls of, 61, 81;\n    age of, 70;\n    condition of, 75;\n    appearance of, 76;\n    belief of, 76;\n    interments of, 77\n  Curse, the, 120\n  Cushite kingdom, foundation of, 108\n  Cushite migration, the, 192\n\n  D\n\n  Dawkins on pal\u00e6olithic and neolithic periods, 93\n  Days of creation, the, 14, 18\n  Delta, the, age of, 174\n  Deluge, the, accounts of, 107;\n    story of, 121;\n    Lenormant on, 123;\n    conclusions as to, 126;\n    prevalence of story of, 127;\n    physical aspects of, 135;\n    Chaldean version of, 136;\n    history of, 137;\n    was it miraculous? 140;\n    was it universal? 147, 151\n  Diana, 160\n  Dispersion of man, the, 108\n  Druses, the, 198\n  Dupont on cave of Goyet, 46;\n    on primitive man, 73;\n    on plain dwellers, 74;\n    on Frontal caves, 98\n\n  E\n\n  Earth, the stages of its history, 15, 18;\n    age of, 18\n  Eber, children of, 179\n  Eden, site of, 114\n  Edwards, Miss, criticism of, 171\n  Egypt, history of, 168;\n    first colonists of, 174\n  Elephant in Europe, the, 38\n  Elevation of land in post-glacial age, 36\n  Elohim, use of the name, 112\n  Embalming, early practice of, 78\n  Engis skull, the, 60\n  Eocene age, the, 23;\n    changes of, 24\n  Eozoic age, the, 19\n  Euphrates, the, 114\n  Eve, story of, 160\n  Evolution of man, the, 22;\n    vagaries of, 118\n  Exodus, the, Pharaoh of, 179\n\n  F\n\n  Fall of man, the, 116\n  Fauna of palanthropic age, changes of, 86\n  Flints, worked, 28\n\n  Food of cave dwellers, 49\n  Furfooz caves, description of, 98\n\n  G\n\n  Generations of Noah, the, 184\n  Genesis, order of creation in, 106\n  Geologist, the, method of, 12\n  Giants, a race of, 63\n  Gibraltar skull, the, 60\n  Glacial age, the, 25\n  Globe, incandescent, picture of, 18\n  Goyet, cave of, description of, 46\n  Greenwell on men of Britain, 103\n  Grenelle, skull of, 60;\n    deposit at, 94\n\n  H\n\n  Hale on importance of language, 206\n  Hamites, migrations of, 188\n  Hasisadra, the Chaldean Noah, 118\n  Hebrew annals, truth of, 106\n  Heth, 167\n  Higher criticism, Sayce on, 109\n  Historian, the, method of, 12\n  Hittites, the, inroad of, 198\n  Holmes on worked flints, 31\n  Homeric heroes, reality of, 166\n  Horus, sons of, 159\n  Hyksos, the, 181\n\n  I\n\n  Idinu, or Eden, 114\n  Ightham, worked flints of, 31\n  Interments, discoveries of, 56;\n    mode of, 77\n  Isha, story of, 160\n  Ivory, ornaments of, 58;\n    engraving on, 74\n\n  J\n\n  Jahveh, 133\n  Japhet, migrations of, 189, 190\n  Jebel Assart, flint chips at, 171\n  Jehovah Elohim, use of the name, 112, 132\n  Jerusalem, ancient state of, 179\n\n  K\n\n  Karun, a river of Eden, 114, 116\n  Kerkhat, the, 114\n  Kheta, or Khatti, 167\n  Kneeling posture in interments, 77\n\n  L\n\n  Laugerie Basse, cave at, 51;\n    skeleton at, 58\n  Lebanon caves, human remains in, 43, 45;\n    visit to, 202\n  Lenormant on the Deluge, 123;\n    on the Ark, 136\n  Lion, the cave, 46\n  Lyell, on Falls of Niagara, 124\n\n  M\n\n  Mammals in palanthropic age, species of, 37\n  Mammoth age, cave of, 50\n  Mammoth, the, in Europe, 38;\n    extinction of, 74\n  Man, date of his appearance, 21, 213;\n    his earliest remains still human, 22;\n    antecedents of, 23;\n    his remains overlaid, 35;\n    in Europe, 35;\n    in palanthropic age, 40;\n    how distinguished, 41;\n    his remains at Nahr-el-Kelb, 45;\n    at Goyet, 46;\n    gnawed bones of, 47;\n    a cave dweller, 48;\n    his ornaments, 48, 58;\n    carving of, 49;\n    food of, 49;\n    his physical characters, 51;\n    his remains at Cro-magnon, 51;\n    skeleton of, at Mentone, 58;\n    varieties in skull of, 60;\n    gigantic size of, 62;\n    a feebler race, 63;\n    conditions of, 71;\n    Dupont on primitive, 73;\n    unprogressive character of men of mammoth age, 75;\n    beliefs of, 76;\n    mortuary customs of palanthropic, 77;\n    change of, from pal\u00e6ocosmic to neocosmic, 91;\n    neolithic, 101;\n    of Britain, 103;\n    in Eden, 115;\n    condition of palanthropic, 116;\n    recency of, 213;\n    locality of his origin, 216\n  Meeting-place of geology and history, 13\n  Mentone skeleton, the, 58\n  Mesozoic age, the, 19\n  Metals, the knowledge of, 118\n  Miocene age, the, 23;\n    changes of, 24;\n    monkeys of, 27\n  Mitanni, 181\n  Mizraim, 193\n  Monkeys, miocene, 27\n  Mortillet on the stone age, 69\n  Moses: his knowledge of Divine name, 180\n  Mourlon on pleistocene remains, 30\n  Musical instruments, invention of, 118\n\n  N\n\n  Nahr-el-Kelb, caverns of, 44;\n    people of, 203\n  Neanderthal skull, the, 60\n  Neanthropic age, definition of, 17;\n    events of, 39;\n    men of, 95\n  Nebula, picture of, 18\n  Necklace, a shell, 48\n  Neocosmic age, appearance of, men of, 91, 102\n  Neolithic age, men of, 101\n  Niagara, Lyell's use of, 124\n  Nile valley, limestones of, 168, 201;\n    appearance of, 174\n  Nimrod, kingdom of, 190\n  Noah, story of, 121\n  Nuesch on deposits at Schweizersbild, 87\n\n  O\n\n  Old man of Cro-magnon, 53;\n    supposed history of, 65\n  Ornaments, remains of, 48, 58\n\n  P\n\n  Pal\u00e6olithic implements, discoveries of, 31\n  Pal\u00e6ozoic age, the, 19\n  Palanthropic age, definition of, 17;\n    number of species of mammals in, 37;\n    climate of, 38;\n    land of, 40;\n    caves of, 46;\n    animals of, 50;\n    man of, 51;\n    conditions of, 69;\n    divisions of, 70;\n    tragic end of, 85;\n    changes in fauna of, 80;\n    subsidence of, 88\n  Palestine, people of, 197;\n    history of, 201\n  Paviland skull, the, 60\n  Petrie: his photographic portraits, 180\n  Pharaoh of the Exodus, the, 179\n  Ph\u0153nicians, the, 193\n  Pictet on number of species in palanthropic age, 37\n  Pinches on Chaldean Genesis, 113\n  Plain dwellers, 51;\n    conditions of, 74\n  Pleistocene age, definition of, 17;\n    history of, 23;\n    human remains of, 30;\n    events of, 39\n  Pliocene age, 23;\n    changes of, 24;\n    human remains of, 29;\n    events of, 39\n  Polished Stone age, the, 69;\n    men of, 101\n  Post-glacial age, 26;\n    elevation of, 36\n  Punites, 193\n\n  Q\n\n  Quaternary period, the, 20\n  Quatrefages on Castelnedolo skeleton, 29;\n    on Truch\u00e8re skull, 84\n\n  R\n\n  Ra, worship of, 177\n  Recency of man, 213\n  Reclus, romance of, 208\n  Reindeer age, the, 38, 50\n  Rhinoceros in Europe, the, 38\n  Rivi\u00e8re on Mentone skeleton, 58, 62\n\n  S\n\n  Sayce on the higher criticism, 109\n  Scale of earth's history, a, 22\n  Schliemann, discoveries of, 166\n  Schweizersbild, deposits at, 87\n  Semites, migrations, 189\n  Seth, the race of, 131\n  Shell ornaments, remains of, 48, 58\n  Sickle, wooden, 172\n  Silures, the, 103\n  Skeleton of Castelnedolo, 29;\n    Mentone, 58;\n    of Laugerie Basse, 58\n  Skull from Val d'Arno, 29;\n    of Cro-magnon, 53, 82;\n    of Clichy, Grenelle, Gibraltar, Paviland, Neanderthal, Engis, 60;\n    of Canstadt, 81;\n    of Truch\u00e8re, 83\n  Species, number of palanthropic, 37\n  Sphinx, the, history of, 176\n  Spy, interments at, 56\n  Stone ages, the, 69\n  Submergence, records of, 148\n  Subsidence of palanthropic age, 88;\n    date of, 90\n\n  T\n\n  Tammuz, story of, 161\n  Taylor on early men of Britain, 103\n  Teeth, human, condition of, 63\n  Tel-el-Amarna tablets, 165, 177\n  Tigris, the, 114\n  Trenton, flints of, 32\n  Tristram on cave shelters, 44\n\n  V\n\n  Vez\u00e8re, rock shelters of, 51\n\n  W\n\n  Whistle, bone, 116\n  Woman of Cro-magnon, 55\n  Woolly rhinoceros in Europe, the, 38\n\n  Z\n\n  Zittel on number of species of mammals, 37\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nAll obvious typographical errors were corrected. Minor changes\nwere made to standardize the text to match the most prevalent\nform used.\n\nTo make it easier to locate the Index entries, a line with each\nalpha group's first letter was added.","title":"The Meeting-Place of Geology and History","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":50197}