The Recent Origin of Man, as illustrated by Geology and the Modern Science of Prehistoric Archæology

Abstract

THE work published under this title is a laborious compilation of heterogeneous materials derived from history, archaeology, and geology, in which the writer attempts to prove “that primeval man commenced his career six or eight thousand years ago in a civilised condition in the temperate regions of the East.” In it the irresponsible dicta of anonymous journalists, and the records of local societies in America, Britain, and France, unchecked by criticism, are taken to be of equal value with those facts which have run the gauntlet of the criticism of the civilised world, and not been found wanting. A work written in this manner must necessarily be a huge pile of wheat and chaff, in which the former can only be got at by a process of careful winnowing. In this particular case we fail to discover any wheat which has not been taken out of somebody else's barn.

The Recent Origin of Man, as illustrated by Geology and the Modern Science of Prehistoric Archæology.

By J. C. Southall. 8vo. Pp. 606. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co.; London: Trübner and Co., 1875.)