for powerful chewing, and considerable intelligence in the 

 horse's brain, together with acute hearing and smell, re- 

 sulted in almost perfect adaptation to the grassland habitat. 

 Given a continuation of extensive grasslands, the horses 

 would therefore appear to be capable of continued exist- 

 ence well beyond their present 50 million years of evo- 

 lution. But unfortunately, as for the elephants, man is 

 altering the horse's natural environment to permit more 

 extensive agriculture. Unless some important use for horses 

 is found, (and their use is steadily diminishing now with 

 the improvement of powered machinery), it therefore seems 

 that these fine animals are doomed to extinction in perhaps 

 a few centuries only. 



Now we may consider the evolution of man himself, 

 the essential course of which is traceable through the 

 many discoveries of prehuman remains in several contin- 

 ents, especially in recent years. To ourselves this study 

 is probably the most interesting, but it will repay us to 

 approach it in a strictly unbiased attitude if we wish to 

 deduce its true nature. Man is a very recent development 

 of the mammalian line, and in fact is not as anatomically 

 evolved as some other mammals, e.g. the elephant and 

 horse. Our five-digit limbs are primitive, as also is our 

 short face with small jaws. But our brain size, especially in 

 the pre-frontal lobes, is greater than that of any other of 

 the higher animals, and our excellent eyesight and manual 

 dexterity have given us the ability to perform operations 

 far more complex than those performed by other animals. 



The earliest creatures, which may be ancestral to 

 modem man, known today, are the Australopithecinae of 

 South and East Africa, remains of which have been found 

 in gravels at Sterkfontein, Makapan and Swartkrans in 

 South Africa, and at Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika. These 



11 



