250 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 



appeared contemporaneously, is also an open ques- 

 tion for the believer in the production of species 

 by the gradual modification of pre-existing ones. 

 At what epoch of the world's history this took 

 place, again, we have no evidence whatever. It 

 may have been in the older tertiary, or earlier; 

 but what is most important to remember is, that 

 the discoveries of late years have proved that man 

 inhabited "Western Europe, at any rate, before the 

 occurrence of those great physical changes which 

 have given Europe its present aspect. And as 

 the same evidence shows that man was the con- 

 temporary of animals which are now extinct, it 

 is not too much to assume that his existence 

 dates back at least as far as that of our present 

 Fauna and Flora, or before the epoch of the 

 drift. 



But if this be true, it is somewhat startling to 

 reflect upon the prodigious changes which have 

 taken place in the physical geography of this 

 planet since man has been an occupant of it. 



During that period the greater part of the 

 British islands, of Central Europe, of Northern 

 Asia, have been submerged beneath the sea and 

 raised up again. So has the great desert of Sahara, 

 which occupies the major part of Northern Africa.* 

 The Caspian and the Aral seas have been one, and 

 their united waters have probably communicated 



[* Later investigations tend to show that only a small 

 part of the Sahara has been submerged. — 1894.] 



