Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
Judging by the uniformity of climate now prevailing from century to
century, and the insensible rate of variation in the geographical
distribution of organic beings in our own times, we may presume that
an extremely lengthened period was required even for so slight a
modification in the range of the molluscous fauna, as that of which
the evidence is here brought to light. There are also other independent
reasons for suspecting that the antiquity of these deposits may be
indefinitely great as compared to the historical period. I allude to
their present elevation above the sea, some of them rising, in Norway,
to the height of 600 feet or more. The upward movement now in progress
in parts of Norway and Sweden extends, as I have elsewhere shown,*
throughout an area about 1000 miles north and south, and for an unknown
distance east and west, the amount of elevation always increasing as we
proceed towards the North Cape, where it is said to equal 5 feet in a
century.
(* "Principles" 9th edition chapter 30.)
If we could assume that there had been an average of 2 1/2 feet in each
hundred years for the last fifty centuries, this would give an elevation
of 125 feet in that period. In other words, it would follow that the
shores, and a considerable area of the former bed of the North Sea, had
been uplifted vertically to that amount, and converted into land in
the course of the last 5000 years. A mean rate of continuous vertical
elevation of 2 1/2 feet in a century would, I conceive, be a high
average; yet, even if this be assumed, it would require 24,000 years for
parts of the sea-coast of Norway, where the Pleistocene marine strata
occur, to attain the height of 600 feet. [9]
CHAPTER 4. -- PLEISTOCENE PERIOD--BONES OF MAN AND EXTINCT MAMMALIA IN
BELGIAN CAVERNS.
Earliest Discoveries in Caves of Languedoc of Human Remains with
Bones of extinct Mammalia.
Researches in 1833 of Dr. Schmerling in the Liege Caverns.
Scattered Portions of Human Skeletons associated with Bones
of Elephant and Rhinoceros.
Distribution and probable Mode of Introduction of the Bones.
Implements of Flint and Bone.
Schmerling's Conclusions as to the Antiquity of Man ignored.
Present State of the Belgian Caves.
Human Bones recently found in Cave of Engihoul.
Engulfed Rivers.
Stalagmitic Crust.
Antiquity of the Human Remains in Belgium how proved.
Having hitherto considered those formations in which both the fossil
shells and the mammalia are of living species, we may now turn our
attention to those of older date, in which the shells being all recent,
some of the accompanying mammalia are extinct, or belong to species not
known to have lived within the times of history or tradition.
DISCOVERIES OF MM. TOURNAL AND CHRISTOL IN 1828 IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.
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