682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



We can reach almost the same conclusion by a little different rea- 

 soning. The abundance of large-flaked instruments in the contiguous 

 valleys of the Somnie and the Seine marks the existence at that point 

 of external conditions evidently favorable to the diffusion of man, 

 whose race was then multiplying for the first time. The flora of that 

 epoch, as observed near Fontainebleau, indicates the presence of con- 

 ditions similar to those now existing in the south of France, near the 

 forty-second degree of latitude. Now, to reach, starting from the 

 forty-second degree, the nearly tropical regions where palm, camphor, 

 and southern laurel trees are associated together, we have to go twelve 

 or fifteen degrees south, to the thirtieth or twenty-eighth degree of lati- 

 tude, where we see the same climatological conditions existing as pre- 

 vailed in Miocene Europe when it was hardly warm enough for the an- 

 thropomorphic apes. Between these conditions and those which seem 

 to have been first favorable to the growth of the human race, there 

 existed a space of twelve or fifteen degrees of latitude. But when 

 palm-trees were growing near Prague, and camphor-trees grew as far 

 north as Dantzic, man, if he existed then, might have lived without 

 inconvenience beyond or around the Arctic Circle, within equal reach 

 of North America and Europe, which he was destined to people. If 

 it be objected to this view that man now lives in the hottest regions 

 as well as in temperate ones, we answer that that shows simply that 

 he has developed a capacity of adapting himself to them ; but he 

 flourishes best and has reached his highest development in temperate 

 latitudes. Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the He- 

 vue des Deux Mondes. 



PKIMITIVE MAP-MAKING. 



By GEOEG M. FEAUENSTEIN. 



THE idea of representing the surface of the earth, or even a part of 

 it, by a map, implies a considerable advance in knowledge. Every 

 map, even the crudest one, is in a certain sense a concentrated repre- 

 sentation, a kind of distillation of physical and politico-geographical 

 knowledge. The clearer and more comprehensive this knowledge, the 

 higher is the degree of accuracy with which it can be portrayed. We 

 are not only taught this by the history of the peoples with which we 

 have had the most to do, that is, of the civilized nations, but it is ob- 

 vious to any one who is acquainted with the lower races. The same 

 practical reasons which urged Europeans to the pictorial representa- 

 tion of geographical facts have also made their influence felt in the 

 prairies of America and the islands of Australasia ; and I have seen 

 maps prepared by Polynesian or Indian hands that would compare 

 favorably with mediaeval representations of the same kind. 



