Page:Antiquity of Man as Deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton.djvu/25

Rh sistence. But, whatever its physical composition, we may regard the stratum as being that on which the man moved who therein left his bones. As man he must have breathed an aerial atmosphere—in other words, have trod the then surface of the earth. To receive the overlying bed the supporting one subsided; the level of the ground there to that extent has consequently changed. Both strata are now very far down.

Here we may pause to consider for how long a period the surface of the banks of the Thames has remained at its present level. During what lapse of time, it may be asked, has the river continued to flow, in course and size and relation to shores, as now it does?

Our evidence on this head does not go back beyond 2000 years, if so far. The Roman invasion of Britain before our Era ( 53) extended to the Thames. The river was crossed by Julius Cæsar in his Second Invasion, 52, against obstacles set in the North Bank by the ancient Britons 1938 years ago. But every inference from the available records of Cæsar's and subsequent Roman invasions indicates the Thames and its banks to have been much the same then as now, geologically speaking. No new stratum, at least at "Coway-Stakes," Oatlands, has been deposited on that which was trod by the then Natives and their Invaders.

But this is far from being the case with my present subject, the more ancient British Aboriginal. His ground