s of ice came floating down the North Sea during the
closing period of the Pliocene Age.<56> Still, during the entire length
of the Pliocene Age, Europe certainly offered an inviting home for man.
Not only were the higher orders of animals present, but at least one
living species was known. We find more proofs of his presence, but
whether they are sufficient to convince us that man really lived during
that epoch is to be seen.

Prof. Whitney has brought to the attention of the scientific world
what he considers ample evidence of the presence of Pliocene man in
California. We reserve this for discussion in another place. We will
only remark, at present, that the evidence in this case is regarded
as sufficient by some of the best of American Scholars.<57> We simply
mention them here, so that they may be borne in mind when we see what
evidence Europe has to offer on this point. In 1863, M. Desnoyers, of
France, discovered, in a stratum which he considered Pliocene, some
bones of elephants and other animals cut and scratched in such a manner
that he considered the cuts to be the work of man. As showing how
cautious geologists are of accepting such conclusions, we mention this
case. There was found in the same bed the remains of an extinct beaver.
The question was at once raised, whether rodents by gnawing these bones
could not have produced the cuts in question. Sir Charles Lyell, by
actual experiments in the Zoological Gardens in London, soon showed that
this was probably the fact.<58> Yet Sir John Lubbock thinks it quite
likely some of them were of human origin.<59> Subsequently, however,
M. Bourgeois discovered in the same bed worked flints, about the human
origin of which there seems to be no doubt;<60> but a more careful study
of the formation in which they occur has raised questions as to its age.
Though usually held to be Pliocene, some careful observers consider it
to be of a later age. Geologists can not be accused of rashly accepting
statements as to the antiquity of man.

In 1867 there was discovered, in Northern Italy, a human skull in a
railway cutting at a depth of nearly fifty feet. This stratum contains
remains of several Pliocene animals. This is held to prove the existence
of Pliocene man by several eminent observers, amongst others Prof.
Cocchi, of Italy, and Forsyth Major.<61> But in this case Mr. Dawkins
contends that it was not found under such conditions as render it
certain that the stratum had been