Eocene

“ Could we have visited the world in this dreary period, and have witnessed the decadence and death of that brilliant and magnificent flora and fauna which we have traced upward from the Eocene, we might well have despaired of the earth’s destinies, and have fancied it the sport of some malignant demon ”

“ It was in this basking world of the chalk and the Eocene that the great mammalian fauna first took its rise; it was in this easy world of fruits and sunshine that the primitive ancestors of man first began to work upwards toward the distinctively human level of the palæolithic period. ”

“ When we get to remains of the Tertiary age, especially those of the Miocene and Eocene epochs, we meet with so many interesting and connected types, and such curious relations with living forms in Europe, that it will be clearer to trace the history of each order and family throughout the Tertiary period, instead of considering each of the subdivisions of that period separately. ”

“ The flora of the Eocene period, although full of interest, does not convey the impression of newness that is afforded by the fauna of the period. The reason for this difference is this: the newer flora had been introduced and had developed to a considerable extent in the Cretaceous period, and there is no sharp break between the flora of the earlier and that of the later period ”

“ Still we have this certain point of departure, that the Eocene begins where the peculiar animals of the Cretaceous end, and that the drying up of the later Cretaceous sea and the establishment of the Eocene land were probably nearly contemporaneous in both continents. It is true, however, in animals as in plants, that in the successive periods of the Tertiary, America presents an older aspect than Europe, just as its modern fauna still contains such old forms as the opossum. ”

“ And so, my good Giacomo Boni, not content with seeking in the Forum the monuments of the Emperors, those of the Republic, and those of the Kings, you must fain sink down into the soil which bore flora and fauna that have vanished, drive your spade into the quaternary, and the tertiary, penetrate the pliocene, the miocene, and the eocene; from Latin archæology you wander to prehistoric archæology and to palæontology. The salons are expressing alarm at the depths to which you are venturing. ”

“ The rich and varied fauna which inhabited Europe at the dawn of the tertiary period,—as shown by the abundant remains of mammalia wherever suitable deposits of Eocene age have been discovered,—proves, that an extensive Palæarctic continent then existed; and the character of the flora and fauna of the Eocene deposits is so completely tropical, that we may be sure there was then no barrier of climate between it and the Oriental region. ”

“ A very similar distribution of land and water in the Cretaceous age gave a warm and equable climate in those portions of North America not submerged, and coincided with the appearance of the multitude of broad-leaved trees of modern types introduced in the early and middle Cretaceous, and which prepared the way for the mammalian life of the Eocene. ”

“ One of the first questions meeting us is that which relates to the point in geological time signalised by the advent of our species. In the Eocene period our continents were being gradually raised out of the ocean, and were still in great part under the waters, which several times returned upon the land, and seemed ready again to engulf it. In this period not only have we no traces of man, but all the higher animals of that age are now extinct. ”

“ We may therefore conclude that the barrier of land connecting the British area with Iceland and Greenland in the Eocene, existed in the Meiocene age, and allowed plants which were Eocene in the Polar regions to flourish in Meiocene Europe. ”

“ Swiftly we traverse this age, and leave its landmarks far behind us, as we pass them with our faces set toward the old, old world. This modern age is one of the [Pg 89] five divisions of the Neozoic, or new period. Through all the five we go, and at the gate of the one called the Eocene we pass out from under the palm shadows, from the mammals ranging in the forests and feeding on the green savannahs, and now we are back in the middle time, the age of the reptiles. The forests are dark with cycads and pines. ”

“ Countless as are the ages which intervened between the Eocene period and the time when the little jawbones of Stonesfield were washed down to the place where they were to await the day when science should bring them again to light, not one mammalian genus which now lives upon our plane has been discovered amongst Eocene strata. We have existing families, but nothing more.—Professor Owen. ”

“ Unfortunately, our knowledge of the interesting fossil fauna of this continent, is almost wholly confined to the Post-Pliocene and Pliocene periods. A few remains have been discovered in deposits believed to be of Eocene age, but nothing whatever representing the vast intervening period, so rich in peculiar forms of animal life both in North America and Europe. ”

“ Hence sound analogical reasoning justifies the expectation that, when we obtain the remains of Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene Anthropidæ, they will present us with the like series of gradations, notwithstanding the fact, if it be a fact, that the Quaternary men, like the Quaternary horses, differ in no essential respect from those which now live. ”

“ From Apes back to lowest Lemurs in the lowest Eocene. The date of Eocene being fixed at 3,000,000, we have about 2,100,000 years for this stage; assuming as much as five years for puberty, this results in 420,000 generations.
3. From Lemures to Prototheria. The earliest known mammalian remains come from the Rhætic, or top formation of the Triassic epoch; allowing for the Rhætic only 100,000 years, we have to add the whole of the Jurassic and Cretaceous, in all about 5,500,000 years. Assuming three years for a generation, we get 1,800,000 generations. ”

“ There is every reason to believe that they were haunted by the Eocene, Meiocene, and Pleiocene beasts of prey, and that the anoplotheres and palæotheres, the deino- theres and mastodons, the deer and the antelopes, were either dragged in by the carnivores, or swept in by the flow of water, after the same manner as the remains of the successive groups of animals have been introduced which have inhabited Europe from the Pleistocene age down to the present day. ”

“ Merely, however, collecting fossils for collecting's sake is useless. The aim of geology is to enable us to understand how this world was made—how form followed form, how type after type took life and then passed away, and the higher organization ever succeeded the lower. The Middle-Eocene ought to be to us particularly interesting, separating us, on the one hand, from those monsters which had filled the previous Age, and, on the other, presenting the first appearances of those higher mammals which should serve the future wants of man. ”

“ These Eocene seas teemed with fish now only found in more Southern latitudes; while the inland lakes and rivers abounded with reptilian life. On the land tropical flora and fauna flourished, among the former being palms, cypresses, and giant cacti, and among the latter, in Lower Eocene times, large numbers of marsupial species, in the Middle Eocene also lion-like carnivora, and in Upper Eocene tapir-like animals, herds of Anchitheres (ancestors of the horse) , Hyænodon (ancestors of hyæna) , and Lemurs. ”

“ Although the placental mammals and the order of primates to which man is related, appear in Tertiary times, and the climate, tropical in the Eocene age, warm in the Miocene, and temperate in the Pliocene, was favourable to his presence, the proofs of his existence in Europe before the close of the Tertiary epoch ... ”

“ The secondary and primary formations are, for the most part, marine,—not because the ocean was more universal in past times, but because the epochs which preceded the Eocene were so distant from our own, that entire continents have been since submerged. ”

“ They’ve been cut down a little further, so that all the Upper Eocene has been eroded and the Middle Eocene is exposed. So you see, Perry, in the Washakie formation we have a chance of finding the fossils of animals that lived in the Upper Eocene Period; and, a few miles away, in the Bridger Bad Lands, we can find the fossils of half a million years earlier. Then, in the Wasatch, there are two places I’m going to visit, the Wind River Valley and the Gray Bull River country; the Wind River exposes the top of the Lower Eocene Rocks and the Gray Bull the bottom layers. ”

“ From the lower Eocene we are on firm ground, and, though very much remains to be learned, much has already been accomplished in the way of tracing the history and development of many mammalian orders. ”

“ The limestone rocks in which it is excavated and which extend east, west, and south for hundreds of miles, are full of the remains of marine animals, and belong, the latest to the eocene, the oldest to the cretaceous formation. ”

“ It was during those middle ages [Pg 173] of the division, represented by its Liassic, Oolitic, and Wealden formations, that the class existed in that abundance which rendered it so peculiarly, above every other age, an age of creeping things and great sea monsters. And so [Pg 174] also, in the Tertiary, regarded as but an early portion of the human division, there was a period of increase and diminution,—a morning and evening of mammalian life. The mammals of its early Eocene ages were comparatively [Pg 175] small in bulk and low in standing ”

“ France, Cave-men found in, 204; opossums in, 33; birds around the upper Eocene lake of Paris, 33; upper Eocene forests of, inhabited by Primates, 34; table of Meiocene classification of, 39; inhabited by man in middle of Meiocene age, 67; lower Pleiocene mammalia of, 79; upper Pleiocene mammalia of, 80; River- drift man in, 164; caves of, River- drift men preceded Cave-men in, 198; in the Bronze age, 379; in the late Bronze age, 381; origin of present inhabitants, according to Dr. Broca, 325; physical characters of the people, 326; cremation and inhumation practised in Bronze age, 381 ”

“ According to this theory, then, the Glacial Age commenced about two hundred and twenty thousand years ago. It continued, with one interruption of mild climate, for one hundred and forty thousand years, and finally passed away eighty thousand years ago.
What shall we say to these results? If true, what a wonderful antiquity is here unfolded for the human race, and what a wonderful lapse of time is included in what is known as the Paleolithic Age! How strikingly does it impress upon our minds the slow development of man! ”

“ The earlier Post-pliocene [283] period of geology may be called the Glacial era. It is that of a cold climate, accompanied by glaciation and boulder deposits. (2) The later Post-pliocene may be called the Post-glacial era. It is that of re-elevation of the continents and restoration of a mild temperature. It connects itself with the pre-historic period of the archæologist, inasmuch as remains of man and his works are apparently included in the same deposits which hold the bones of Post-glacial animals. (3) The Modern era is that of secular human history. ”

“ If we reflect on the long series of events of the post-pliocene and recent periods contemplated in this chapter, it will be remarked that the time assigned to the first appearance of man, so far as our geological inquiries have yet gone, is extremely modern in relation to the age of the existing fauna and flora, or even to the time when most of the living species of animals and plants attained their actual geographical distribution. ”

“ So we may conclude that rafts of ice came floating down the North Sea during the closing period of the Pliocene Age.56 Still, during the entire length of the Pliocene Age, Europe certainly offered an inviting home for man. Not only were the higher orders of animals present, but at least one living species was known. We find more proofs of his presence, but whether they are sufficient to convince us that man really lived during that epoch is to be seen. ”

“ To see how, following a definite plan, the vast continents have grown to their present size and form; to see how animal and vegetable life have evolved successively higher and higher forms; to see where in this wondrous drama of creation, this strange unfolding of life, the first faint, indecisive traces of man’s presence are to be found; to learn what great changes in climate, in Geogony, and in life, had occurred before man’s appearance, let us pass in brief review the history of early geological periods. ”

“ The immense antiquity, not only of the globe, but of that thin crust of it open to our inspection, has been ascertained by geology. Geology, again, has made it certain that during millions of years, changes on the earth’s surface have been in continual progress, so that not once merely, but many times over, continents and oceans must have yielded to one another, yet by no sudden, but ever by a gradual transposition, such as is in constant progress at the present day. ”

“ The close of the Glacial period, introducing great physical and climatal changes, some new species of mammalia and man himself, should be regarded as the end of the Pleistocene, and the introduction of what some French geologists have called the Anthropic period, which I have elsewhere divided into Palanthropic, corresponding to the so-called Palæolithic age, and Neanthropic, corresponding to the later stone and metal ages. ”

“ These three principal phenomena of the ice-fields, the mammals, and the human life and industry, together establish the chronology of the Age of Man. In other words, there are four ways of keeping prehistoric time: that of geology, that of palæontology, that of anatomy, and that of human industry. Geologic events mark the grander divisions of time; palæontologic and anatomic events mark the lesser divisions; while the successive phases of human industry mark the least divisions. ”