The time is past when it is necessary to go into any lengthened argument to prove that man has existed throughout the Quaternary period. Less than half a century has elapsed since the confirmation of Boucher-de-Perthes' discovery of palæolithic implements in the old gravels of the Somme, and yet the proofs have multiplied to such an extent that they are now reckoned, not by scores or hundreds, but by tens of thousands. They have been found not in one locality or in one formation only, but in all the deposits of the Quaternary age, from the earliest to the latest, and in association with all the phases of the Quaternary period, from the extinct mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and cave-bear, to the reindeer, horse, ox, and other existing animals. No geologist or palæontologist, who approaches the subject with anything like competent knowledge, and without theological or other prepossessions, doubts that man is as much a characteristic member of the Quaternary fauna as any of these extinct or existing animals, and that reasonable doubt only begins when we pass from the Quaternary into the Tertiary ages. I will content myself, therefore, instead of going over old ground and proving facts which are no longer disputed, with showing what bearing they have on the question of human origins. [Illustration: PALÆOLITHIC CELT (type of St. Acheul). From Quaternary deposits of the Nerbudda, India.] [Illustration: PALÆOLITHIC CELT IN ARGILLITE. From the Delaware, United States (Abbott).] The first remarkable fact to note is, that at this remote period man not only existed, but existed in considerable numbers, and already widely spread over nearly the whole surface of the habitable earth. Implements and weapons of the palæolithic type, such as celts or hatchets, lance and arrow-heads, knives, borers and scrapers of flint, or if that be wanting of some hard stone of the district, fashioned entirely by chipping without any grinding or polishing, have been found in the sands and gravels of most of the rivers of Southern England, France, Belgium and Germany, of the Tagus and Manzanares in Spain, and the Tiber in Italy. Still more numerously also in the caves and glacial drifts of these and other European countries. Nor are they confined to Europe. Stone implements of the same type have been found in Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt, and in Natal and South Africa. Also in Greece, Syria, Palestine, Hindostan, and as far east as China and Japan, while in the New World they have been found in Maryland, Ohio, California, and other States in North America, and in Brazil, and the Argentine pampas in the South. And this has been the result of the explorations of little more than thirty years, prior to which the coexistence of man with the extinct animals was almost universally denied; and of explorations which except in a few European countries have been very partial. [Illustration: PALÆOLITHIC FLINT CELT (type of St. Acheul). From Algeria (Lubbock).]