Part 1

Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: italic

THE

PUZZLE OF LIFE.

LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET

Frontispiece

The Mammoth.]

THE PUZZLE OF LIFE;

AND

HOW IT HAS BEEN PUT TOGETHER.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FORMATION OF THE EARTH, WITH ITS VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES,

INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF

PRE-HISTORIC MAN, his WEAPONS, TOOLS and WORKS.

ARTHUR NICOLS, F.R.G.S.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS by FREDERICK WADDY.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1877.

All rights reserved.

MY YOUNG FRIENDS

BEATRIX, GUY, SYLVIA, MAY, AND GERALD.

THE CHILDREN OF

GEORGE DU MAURIER.

PREFACE

THE SECOND EDITION.

The favourable reception accorded to the first edition has induced me to give the present a more definite educational character. Foot-notes are appended, referring to the position in the British Museum of all the principal antiquities, fossils, and implements mentioned in the text; so that the specimens can easily be found by any young student who wishes, with the book in his hand, to make himself familiar with these records of past time. This will probably facilitate the search for and recognition of specimens by the reader.

The additions to the text consist chiefly of a more extended account of the deposition of chalk and other deep-sea formations, founded on the results of the “Challenger” and “Tuscarora” expeditions, and a sketch of the earthworks of the Ohio mound-builders and the stone monuments of Easter Island. Examples of pre-historic art and lake-dwellings have been added to the illustrations.

A. N.

HAMPSTEAD: March 1877.

PREFACE