228 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



selection. But to this latter subject we shall presently re- 

 turn. 



On the Extinction of the JRaces of Man. — The partial 

 and complete extinction of many races and sub-races of 

 man are historically known events. Humboldt saw in 

 South America a parrot which was the sole living creature 

 that could speak the language of a lost tribe. Ancient 

 monuments and stone implements* found in all parts of the 

 world, of which no tradition is preserved by the present 

 inhabitants, indicate much extinction. Some small and 

 broken tribes, remnants of former races, still survive in 

 isolated and generally mountainous districts. In Europe 

 the ancient races were all, according to Schaaffhausen, 29 

 " lower in the scale than the rudest living savages ; " they 

 must therefore have differed, to a certain extent, from any 

 existing race. The remains described by Prof. Broca 29 

 from Les Eyzies, though they unfortunately appear to 

 have belonged to a single family, indicate a race with a 

 most singular combination of low or simious and high 

 characteristics, and is " entirely different from any other 

 race, ancient or modern, that we have ever heard of." It 

 differed, therefore, from the quaternary race of the caverns 

 of Belgium. 



Unfavorable physical conditions appear to have had 

 but little effect in the extinction of races. 30 Man has long 

 lived in the extreme regions of the North, with no wood 

 wherewith to make his canoes or other implements, and 

 with blubber alone for burning and giving him warmth, 

 but more especially for melting the snow. In the South- 



2S Translation in 'Anthropological Review,' Oct. 18G8, p. 431. 



29 'Transact. Internat. Congress of Prehistoric Arch.' 1868, pp. 1*72- 

 175. See also Broca (translation) in 'Anthropological Review,' Oct. 

 18G8, p. 410. 



80 Dr. Gerland, 'TJeber das Aussterben der Naturvolker,' 1868, s. 82, 



