ETHNOLOGY. 311 



How does it happen that we know so much about people who have 

 left uo trace iu the memory of man, and whose existeuce, even twenty 

 years ago, was deemed imi)ossible ? Are they children of romance, like 

 the celebrated troglodytes of Montesque ? On the contrary, nothing is 

 more real than our troglodytes ; nothing is more authentic than their 

 annals. In the caves thej inhabited, or in which they deposited their 

 dead, we find the residue of their, feasts, the products of their indus- 

 tries and their arts, and the remains of their bodies. These are the 

 books in which we read their history ; these are the documents which 

 have resuscitated their past. 



Several savans have taken part in these investigations ; among them 

 Christy, the Marquis of Vibrage, M. Falconer, and our two colleagues, 

 MM. Louis Lartet and Elie Massenat, deserve respect ; but one name 

 eclipses all others — that of the founder of human paleontology, Edward 

 Lartet. 



We with reason admire Cuvier, who, in his study of fossil bones, suc- 

 ceeded iu restoring the successive fauna of the geological periods 5 also 

 Champollion, who, with so much sagacity and patience, deciphered the 

 hieroglyphical monuments of Egypt, but not less admirable iu his im- 

 portant labors was Edward Lartet. His field of investigation lay be- 

 tween that of Cuvier and that of Champollion, and shared iu both. He 

 revived human associations in those paleontological periods in which 

 Cuvier found only extinct brute animals ; he discovered the history and 

 the chronology of the ancient man, the contemporary of the mammoth, as 

 Champollion discovered that of the architects of the great pyramids. 

 These three men are the glory of French science. They were initiators ; 

 they founded schools. Their disciples and followers have but widened 

 the paths they opened, and although foreign savans have made great 

 progress, they do not forget that to France belongs the honor of having 

 led the way. 



I. — Determination of ti3ie. 



Before discussing a population it may be well to assign it a place iu 

 time. But in this case ordinary chronology is not applicable, for we 

 have to do with periods of incalculable length. Since the time when 

 our troglodytes were in existence great changes have taken place iu 

 climate and fauna. These were produced without revolution, without 

 violent action, by the gradual influence of insensible causes, which are 

 still in exercise at the present day ; and when we think that these causes, 

 during the course of the centuries known to us, have produced only 

 changes almost inappreciable, we may form some idea of the immense 

 duration of what is called a geological period. 



It is not by years, centuries, or thousands of years, that we can meas- 

 ure these immense periods ; it is not by figures that we cau express these 

 dates; but we can determine the order in which these geological periods 

 succeeded each other, and the sub-periods of which each was composed. 



