Geologists have uniformly reasoned on the _a priori_
improbability of these being fossil bones, and have somewhat strained
the evidence--as some distinguished _savans_[A] now believe--against the
theory of a great human antiquity.
[Footnote A: Pictet.]
And yet the "negative evidence" against the existence of the fossil
man was open to many doubts. The records of geology are notoriously
imperfect. We probably read but a few leaves of a mighty library of
volumes. Moreover, the last ages preceding the present period were
witnesses of a series of changes and slowly acting agencies of
destruction, from which man may have in general escaped. We have reason
to believe that during long periods of time the land was gradually
elevated and subject to oscillations, so that the courses of rivers and
the beds of lakes were disturbed, and even the bottom of the ocean was
raised. The results were the inundation of some countries, and the
pouring of great currents of water over others, wearing down the hills
and depositing in the course of ages the regular layers of gravel, sand,
and marl, which now cover so large a part of Europe.
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