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Updated: May 31, 2025
By this theory he dispensed with the necessity of filling up pre-existing cavities with stratified alluvium, in the manner proposed by M. de Mortillet. I will now explain to what extent I agree with, and on what points I feel compelled to differ from the two distinguished geologists above cited. First.
"These figures," says Mortillet, "are certainly not exaggerated. It is even probable that they are below the truth. Constantly new discoveries are being made that tend to remove farther back the date of man's appearance." We see, then, according to this estimate, that about a quarter of a million years have elapsed since man evolved to a state that could properly be called human.
Their use necessarily involves that of a bow, yet we do not know of a single weapon such as that, or of one that could take its place, dating from Paleolithic times. Probably the rapid decomposition of the wood of which bows were made has led to their disappearance. De Mortillet mentions a bow found in a pile-dwelling in a bog near Robenhausen, which he ascribes to the Neolithic period.
It will be seen in the elaborate map recently executed by Signor Gabriel de Mortillet of the ancient glaciers of the Italian flank of the Alps that the old moraines descend in narrow strips from the snow-covered ridges through the principal valleys to the great basin of the Po, on reaching which they expand and cover large circular or oval areas.
These older alluvial strata must, according to M. de Mortillet, be of pre-glacial date and could not have been carried past the sites of the lakes, unless each basin had previously been filled and levelled up with mud, sand, and gravel, so that the river channel was continuous from the upper to the lower extremity of each basin.
Signor Gastaldi has shown that all the ponds in that area consist exclusively of what M. de Mortillet has denominated morainic lakes, i.e. caused by barriers of glacier-mud and stones. Fifthly. The deposits alluded to on the borders of the Lake of Zurich are those of Utznach and Durnten, situated each about 350 feet above the present level of the lake and containing valuable beds of lignite.
On the whole, it appears to me, in accordance with the views of Professor Ramsay, M. Mortillet, Mr.
Gabriel Mortillet that man has existed for 230,000 years, there is neither evidence nor probability. But these are manifestly recorded in a brief and epitomized form; nor do all the versions agree. We may well believe that a watchful Providence has taken care of the record of inspiration, but we know it has been done by human and ordinary agency.
M. Gabriel de Mortillet after a careful study of the glacial formations of the Alps agreed with his predecessors that the great lakes had existed before the glacial period, but came to the opinion in 1859 that they had all been first filled up with alluvial matter and then re-excavated by the action of ice, which during the epoch of intense cold had by its weight and force of propulsion scooped out the loose and incoherent alluvial strata, even where they had accumulated to a thickness of 2000 feet.
We learn from M. de Mortillet that in the peat which has filled up one of the "morainic lakes" formed by the ancient glacier of the Ticino, M. Moro has discovered at Mercurago the piles of a lake-dwelling like those of Switzerland, together with various utensils and a canoe hollowed out of the trunk of a tree.
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