, as must be the facts of any science in its
inchoate condition, and that they are steadily growing in volume, so
that it is not safe to venture a final verdict against it on that score.
The facts in support of the globular form of the earth, or the
Copernican theory of the heavens, or the great age of the earth, were at
one time meagre--they are not so now. Sir Charles Lyell is a pioneer
explorer in a new and mysterious realm: the time may come when, amid the
abundance of the treasure gathered from it, the scanty hoard which he
opens to his reader may seem meagre enough.

Nevertheless, Sir Charles Lyell is fully a believer in the doctrine of
the high antiquity of man. His book is not merely a debating-club
discussion of the pros and cons, the probabilities for and against the
doctrine, but rather the earnest pleading of the advocate fully
persuaded that the truth is on his side. Not that it displays any
forensic heat;--it is calm, cautious, dispassionate; but it has the air
of one governed by conviction, and he often assumes the entire truth of
his conclusions with the quiet _nonchalance_ of a man seemingly
unconscious that what he regards as matters of established certainty
will be viewed by the great majority of his fellow beings as startling
novelties.

The main stream of the geological evidence of the antiquity of man tends
to one point, viz., _that man coexisted with the extinct animals_. There
are collateral branches of proof, but this is the main channel. The
remains of man and of man's works and the remains of extinct races of
animals lie side by side, and claim from the geologist the same meed of
antiquity. This is the burden of the book before us. We offer the reader
a brief outline of this evidence. In doing so, we will follow the order
of Sir Charles Lyell's work, and merely state the leading facts which
geological investigations have brought to light.

In the Danish islands there are deposits of peat from ten to thirty feet
thick, formed in the hollows or depressions of the northern drift or
bowlder formation. These beds of peat have been examined to the bottom,
and they reveal the history of vegetation in those localities, and the
contemporaneous history of human progress. Beginning at the top, the
explorer finds the first layers to contain principally the trunks of the
beech tree, along with implements and tools of wood and iron. Below
these is a deposit of oak trunks, with implements mainly of bronze.