January, 1897. SOME NEW BOOKS. 51 



prehistoric Aquitanians and others. At p. 69 is a lively description 

 of plate iii. which represents two men trying to follow up some 

 reindeer, one of which has been already wounded with a harpoon, 

 probably when first met with while grazing. A far easier method of 

 obtaining their venison, by the old folk, was probably by trapping in 

 pitfalls and the associated run-ways and deer-fences, as in Scandinavia 

 and Newfoundland. At p. 70 the curious pogamogans used in those 

 old times in Western Europe, and by some wild races at the present 

 day, are mentioned. We may inform the author that in Westminster 

 Abbey a pogamogan is held in the hand of a North-American Indian, 

 who has been sculptured as part of a tombstone in memory of some 

 military officer in George the Third's day. It is on the north wall of 

 the nave. 



Information collected about ancient cave-dwellers, especially the 

 men of the Older Stone Age, opens out the subject of rock-shelters, 

 caverns, and especially bone-caves. In the last occur bones of 

 animals formerly existing, but some of them now extinct altogether 

 or removed by emigration from their former country — hence the 

 question as to the time when the caves were occupied, and, of 

 course, the age of the bones in the several caves, in relation especially 

 to the so-called Glacial Period. These points are more or less 

 dogmatically stated by different observers. It is often difficult to 

 determine whether such animals as now inhabit warm climates were 

 really associated at the same time with such as are now accustomed 

 to live in cold regions. Also whether or no, clay and stones rubbed 

 down by then existing glaciers entered or shut up the mouths of the 

 said caves. These questions often cannot be decided for want of 

 incontestable evidence. 



The various proofs that Western Europe had a kind of Arctic 

 climate, in palaeolithic and probably neolithic ages, lead to the con- 

 sideration of its possible causes. Although some extreme statements 

 and fancies have been cleared away, the real cause or causes are still 

 hypothetical. This is the subject of chapter iv., " On the Myth of 

 the Great Ice-sheet, and Theories of the Flood." Mr. Hutchinson 

 wisely regards the " Ice-age " as having been greatly exaggerated — 

 that "the notion of a Polar Ice-cap must be for ever abandoned," and 

 that " vast physical changes " took place at the end of the Glacial 

 Period, with an " amelioration of the climate." He finds no room to 

 compile an account of the peculiar Drift deposits of the time ; but 

 objects to Prestwich's careful and elaborate geological exposition of 

 " a rapid submergence and emergence," producing all the apparent 

 results of a deluge in Western and Southern Europe; also to his own 

 friend Howorth's " wide-spread wave of waters " passing over the 

 country, and sweeping away the mammoth and its contemporaries. 

 This flood was presumably caused by earth-movements, as the fore- 

 going was, but on a larger scale. The Reverend Author rejects these 

 scientific hypotheses, because " both the account in ' Genesis ' and 

 that in the primitive Accadian or Chaldean version mention fain as 

 the cause of the Flood " ! 



Changes in climate and their causes, in chapter v., form a sequel 

 to the " Great Ice-sheet Myth " ; and some enquirers may find the 

 resume of opinions and calculations of use to them in their studies. 

 As for the author, he is judiciously cautious here ; the old-fashioned 

 idea of the relative positions of land and water — that is, geographical 

 conditions and their changes — is mentioned ; and the cause of the 

 Glacial Period is left " an open question." Less than 20,000 years is 

 taken as being fully the time between it and the present. So also in 



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