ETHNOLOGY. 



>4o 



dytes of the Yezere. For want of time I have been obliged to omit and 

 curtail much that would have been interesting to have dwelt upon, bur 

 hope that you have been enabled to follow fromMoustier to Cromagnon, 

 from Cromagnon to Upper Laugerie and George d'Enfer, and then to 

 the three localities of the Eyzies, Lower Laugerie, and the Madelaine. 

 the progressive evolution of an intelligent race who advanced graduallj- 

 from the most savage state to the very threshold of civilization ; for the 

 troglodytes of the last period, with a regularly organized society, and 

 possessing industry and the arts — the two great levers of progress — 

 were, so to say, within one step of a truly civilized condition. 



Skull of the old man of Cromagnon ; vertical view. 



This interesting people suddenly disappeared, leaving no trace in the 

 traditions of men, not gradually, after a period of decadence, but rapidly, 

 without transition, perhaps suddenly, and with them the light of the 

 arts is extinguished. Then follows a period of darkness, a sort of middle 

 age, of unlinow'u duration. The chain of time is broken, and. when we 

 would resume it again, we find in the place of the hunters of the rein- 

 deer a new society, a new industry, a new race, a people who are 

 acquainted with agriculture, who domesticate animals, raise megalithic 

 monuments, and have the ax of polished flint. It is the dawn of a 

 new day, but the knowledge of the arts has been lost. Sculpture and 

 design have entirely disappeared, and it is not until the latest days of 

 polished stone that we discover, and then only here and there upon an 

 occasional monument, some attempts at ornamentation, which have 

 absolutely nothing in common with the remarkable artistic productions 

 of the troglodytes. 



This sudden and complete extinction of the troglodytes suggests the 

 occurence of a cataclysm, but such a supposition is contradicted by 



