ETHNOLOGY. 315 



the Quaternary period. When the strata of the upper levels began to 

 be formed, the animals we call extinct had almost entirely disappeared. 

 A few rare specimens of the mammoth still survived. Still more rare 

 was the great Irish stag {Megaceros liibernicus) and the large lion of 

 the caves. The rest of the fauna had changed but little. The reindeer, 

 however, had increased to a most extraordinary extent, and the third 

 period is deservedly called the age of the reindeer. 



It is not only in the existence of the reindeer that this period differs 

 from that of our day. In company with the reindeer lived in our still 

 cold region a number of animals to whom frost and snow were congenial 

 elements, and who could not exist in temperate climates. As the tem- 

 perature approached its present condition, the individuals which npon 

 oui- plateaus and in our plains represented these species disappeared 5 

 but the species themselves, far from perishing, found in a colder climate 

 a more congenial temperature, and have been perpetuated to the present 

 day. Among these species called migratory, some, like the reindeer, the 

 sloth, the musk-ox, have goue toward the north ; others, such as the 

 chamois, the goat, the marmot, have not left our zone, but have sought 

 greater altitudes, and have taken refuge in the lofty peaks of the Alps 

 and the Pyrenees. 



The disappearance of the reindeer and other migratory species 

 marked the end of the Quaternary period, and of paleoutological time. 

 Tben commenced the modern period. Our climate, at that time, was 

 probably rather colder than at present, but it was already temperate, 

 and the slight changes it has since nndergone have not been sufidcient 

 to produce the extinction of species. It is true that the urns, {Bos 

 primigeniiis,) and the aurochs, {Bison europcms,) have disappeared 

 from our region, but this must be attributed to the destructive action 

 of man rather than to the effects of climate ; and to man, also, is 

 attributable the introduction of certain new species, for the most part 

 domestic. With these exceptions, we may say that since the end of the 

 Quaternary period our fauna has undergone no change, and that the 

 recent deposits contain only actual or living species. 



The dates we seek to establish are then determined both by strat- 

 ography and" paleontology. They also rest npon a certain order of 

 facts which to-day constitutes a new science — that of prehistoric archae- 

 ology. 



Man lived in all the periods of which we have just spoken. It does 

 not concern ns whether or not he existed in the latter part of the Ter- 

 tiary period. This Tertiary man does not come within the limits of our 

 present observations, and, besides, it is by no means certain that he 

 eristed. But what does concern us, and has been positively proved by 

 Boucher de Perthes, is, that the most ancient strata of the Quaternary 

 period contain evidences of human industry. The knowledge of the 

 use of metals dates, we may say, only from yesterday. But before man 

 possessed these powerful auxiliaries he was not without instruments of 



