lueeock's prehistoric times. 621 



" made of wood, stone, horn and bone. Their principal food must 

 ** have consisted of shell-fish, but they were able to catch fish, and 

 " often varied their diet by game caught in hunting. It is, perhaps, 

 " not uncharitable to conclude that, when their hunters were un- 

 " usually successful, the whole community gorged itself with food, 

 " as is the case with many savage races at the present time. It is 

 " evident that marrow was considered a great delicacy, for every 

 " single bone which contained any was split open in the manner best 

 " adapted to extract the precious morsel." 



The facts hitherto recorded by the Archaeologists of North 

 America, concerning the ancient monuments of that country, which 

 form the subject of our author's nest chapter, although of great 

 interest, as proving that parts of the gToat valley of the Mississippi 

 were formerly the seat of an earlier civilization and subsequent 

 retrogression into barbarism, have not much value as regards the 

 antiquity of the human race. Even if we attribute to these changes 

 ail the importance that has been claimed for them, Sir John Lubbock 

 is of opinion that " they will not require an antiquity of more 

 than three thousand years." He does not deny that the period may 

 have been much greater, although he believes that that limit is 

 sufficient to meet all the circumstances of the case. At the same 

 time, there are other observations, which, if they shall eventually 

 prove correct, would indicate a very much higher antiquity. 



The ossiferous caves of Europe furnish us with much more im- 

 portant evidence on the subject. "VVe shall not now attempt to go 

 into the particulars of this part of Sir John Lubbock's work, as they 

 have so short time ago been submitted to our readers in a former 

 number of this Journal.* But we may be permitted to repeat the 

 conclusion arrived at— that the bone-caves supply us with sufficient 

 evidence that " man was coeval in Europe with the great group of 

 quaternary Mammalia." In the like manner it will be unnecessary 

 to say much about the great discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes 

 in the valley of the Somme, and other discoveries of flint instruments, 

 to which we have so frequently called attention. After making 

 careful allowance for all the objections started, and the difficulties 

 urged in relation to this subject, Sir John Lubbock comes to the 

 inevitable conclusion, that even, if " we get no definite date for the 

 ** arrival of man in these countries, we can at least form a vivid idea 



* See " Cavemen." Bv J. Lubbock, F.R.S., &c. N.H.R., 1861, p. 407. 

 N.H.R.— 1865. 2 N 



