Page:Antiquity of Man as Deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton.djvu/36

30 preted by Professor Capellini as evidence of contemporary human operations with a cutting-tool.

The Baron de Baye has summed up the recorded evidences, from tools and other handiworks, of the existence of mankind, satisfactorily so determined, in his work entitled 'L'Archéologie préhistorique' (1880), in which he concludes by expressing serious doubts as to the alleged evidence of Tertiary men of either Miocene or Pliocene age.

The value and character of this work may be judged by the fact that the experienced anthropologist, Professor de Quatrefages, who had previously visited the Château de Baye and studied the rich series there preserved of archæological evidences, the results of which are given in his work before cited (pp. 79, 96, 101), issued in 1884, therein states that he wrote to M. de Baye asking for his convictions, after the alleged evidences of Tertiary man adduced since the year 1880, and in reference to the suggested stages of transformation from the quadrumanal to the bimanal types during Tertiary epochs. The following was the reply:—"Tout en respectant l'opinion des Archéologues qui vont plus loin que moi, je ne trouve pas encore les faits acquis d'une affirmation motivée, et j'attend, prêt à reconnaître et de suivre les progrès de la Science."

The prehistoric existence of Mankind, generically and specifically identical with those now living has been confirmed by his remains found in caves and by Ins tools of flint and bone found there and elsewhere.

The want which the able collector and describer of Palæolithic weapons in Pleistocene deposits now forming the north bank of the Thames has so earnestly expressed