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However this may be, the establishment of man in those countries in which we have said that the fossil remains of land animals are found, that is to say, in the greatest part of Europe, Asia, and America, has necessarily been posterior, not only to the revolutions which have covered up these bones, but also to those which have laid bare the strata containing them, and which are the last that the globe has undergone. Hence it clearly appears, that no argument in favour of the antiquity of the human species in these different countries can be derived either from those bones themselves, or from the more or less considerable masses of rocks or of earthy materials by which they are covered.
Physical Proofs of the Newness of the Present Continents.
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On the contrary, by a careful examination of what has taken place on the surface of the globe, since it has been laid dry for the last time, and its continents have assumed their present form, at least in the parts that are somewhat elevated, it may be clearly seen that this last revolution, and consequently the establishment of our existing societies, could not have been very ancient. This result is one of the best established, and, at the same time, one of the least attended to in rational geology; and it is so much the more valuable, that it connects natural and civil history in one uninterrupted series.