8 TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



Again, Prof. Dawkins conjectures that the older Palaeolithic 

 men may have been the ancestors of the Arctic Esquimaux ; but 

 the only ground stated for this inference is, that they appear to 

 have lived under like conditions, and used similar implements 

 and arts. This assumption w^ould imply that these people had 

 retired out of Europe, either northeastwardly across all Siberia 

 to North America, or northw^estwardly over land now^ submerged 

 to Greenland ; or that they had become wholly extinct in the 

 European area after the glacial epoch ; or, again, that, prior to 

 that epoch, they had migrated westwardly from America across 

 all Asia into Europe, and afterwards become extinct in the Euro- 

 pean area. Either supposition is perhaps possible. The Tchut- 

 chies, Samoieds, and other tribes of Northeastern Siberia are 

 described as more nearly resembling the American Esquimaux 

 than the Mongols of Asia ; and it is very probable that they 

 crossed Behring's Straits from America in recent times. Such 

 migrations may have followed the Arctic shores even into Eu- 

 rope in very remote epochs. Indeed, during the warm tempera- 

 tures preceding the glacial epoch, there would seem to have been 

 nothing to prevent their distribution all around the Arctic circle. 

 And considering the vast lapse of time and the wide extent of 

 such possible migrations of the more primitive jDeoples, together 

 with the eftect of extinctions over large areas in later times by 

 the pressure of more warlike and superior races upon them, and 

 that possibly within the glacial epoch there may have been a land 

 connection between Northern Europe and Greenland, the hypo- 

 thesis may not be unreasonable. On the other hand, the proofs 

 seem to be quite as strong that Europe was first inhabited by 

 races entering it from the southeast. 



Here, it must be borne in mind that this divisic4i of the 

 Qiiaternary into two or more epochs is in some measure arbi- 

 trary, however convenient for study. But there is no need of 

 supposing an}' break in the continuity of animal life through all 

 actual changes. There were alternate elevations and submer- 

 gences during the glacial epoch, at times uniting the British 

 Islands with the continent, and joining Europe with Northern 

 Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar, and across by Sicilv and 

 Malta to the region of Tunis; and, in the alternations of climate, 

 animals of the southern or African fauna and arctic animals, as 



