Mr. Dawkins also objects because fragments of pottery were found in the strata. “Pottery,” says he, “was unknown in the Pleistocene Age,70 and therefore is unlikely to have been found in the Pliocene.”71 Mr. Geikie says this objection is founded on a mistake, as Prof. Capellini told him the pottery was found lying on the surface, and was never for a moment imagined by him as belonging to the same age as the cut bones.72 There is also the objection, that, inasmuch as all the mammals then alive except one have perished, it is more than likely that, had man been in existence then, he too would have disappeared. We considered this point fully when speculating as to the presence of man in the Miocene: so we have nothing further to offer. We might, however, suggest that, if the hippopotamus amongst mammals could survive all the changing time since the Pliocene, as it has done, it seems no more than fair to admit equal power of endurance to the human species. The position then of the scientific world as to the Pliocene Age of man is, on the whole, more decided in its favor than for the Miocene Age. Quite a number of eminent scholars, whose conclusions are worthy of all respect, unhesitatingly affirm the existence of Pliocene man in Europe. Others are not quite ready to admit his existence in Europe, but do think he was in existence elsewhere. Still others, with all due respect for the discoveries of Capellini, think it more prudent to await further discoveries. The reader, who has followed us through this brief outline of the past, can join which of the classes he will, and be sure of finding himself in good company. This completes our review of past geological ages. With the termination of the Pliocene Age we find ourselves on firmer ground. We only wish to call attention once more to the gradual unfolding of life. We see that the rule has been that everywhere the lower forms of life precede the higher. In the plant world flowerless plants precede the flowering ones. The coal we burn to-day is mainly the remains of the wonderful growth of the flowerless vegetation of the Paleozoic Ace. When flowering plants appear, it is the lower forms of them at first.