io8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in diminished numbers; and that in some of the caves, such, for 

 instance, as those in the neighborhood of Mentone, there may be 

 traces of his existence during the transitional period that connects 

 the palaeolithic and neolithic ages. If this were really the case, we 

 might expect to find some traces of a dissemination of neolithic cul- 

 ture from a north Italian center, but I much doubt whether any 

 such traces actually exist. If it had been in that part of the world 

 that the transition took place, how are we to account for the abun- 

 dance of polished stone hatchets found in central India? Did neo- 

 lithic man return eastward by the same route as that by which in 

 remote ages his palaeolithic predecessor had migrated westward? 

 "Would it not be in defiance of all probability to answer such a ques- 

 tion in the affirmative? We have, it must be confessed, nothing of 

 a substantial character to guide us in these speculations; but, pend- 

 ing the advent of evidence to the contrary, we may, I think, pro- 

 visionally adopt the view that owing to failure of food, climatal 

 changes, or other causes, the occupation of western Europe by palaeo- 

 lithic man absolutely ceased, and that it was not until after an in- 

 terval of long duration that Europe was repeopled by a race of men 

 immigrating from some other part of the globe where the human 

 race had survived, and in course of ages had developed a higher 

 stage of culture than that of palaeolithic man. 



I have been carried away by the liberty allowed for conjecture 

 into the regions of pure imagination, and must now return to the 

 realms of fact, and one fact on which I desire for a short time to 

 insist is that of the existence at the present day, in close juxtaposi- 

 tion with our own civilization, of races of men who — at all events 

 but a few generations ago — lived under much the same conditions 

 as did our own neolithic predecessors in Europe. The manners and 

 customs of these primitive tribes and peoples are changing day by 

 day, their languages are becoming obsolete, their myths and tradi- 

 tions are dying out, their ancient processes of manufacture are fall- 

 ing into oblivion, and their numbers are rapidly diminishing, so that 

 it seems inevitable that ere long many of these interesting popula- 

 tions will become absolutely extinct. The admirable Bureau of 

 Ethnology instituted by our neighbors in the United States of 

 America has done much toward preserving a knowledge of the vari- 

 ous native races in this vast continent; and here in Canada the annual 

 Archaeological Eeports presented to the Minister of Education are 

 rendering good service in the same cause. Moreover, the committee 

 of this association appointed to investigate the physical characters, 

 languages, and industrial and social conditions of the northwestern 

 tribes of the Dominion of Canada is about to present its twelfth and 

 final report, which, in conjunction with those already presented, 



