26 
would afford abundant prey to the lions, bears, and hyenas 
inhabiting all the accessible caves, as well as to their great enemy 
and destroyer—Man.”’ 
- For we have certainly arrived at last at the advent of our own 
species. Along with the mammals from the south wandered the 
highest of them all, very low in the scale of humanity as yet, it is 
true; only a nomad hunter, but still a Man, already asserting his 
dominion over the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field, and 
having latent within him, savage as he was, all the infinite 
possibilities of our nature. He came then originally into Britain 
by Land, long before it was an island, certainly towards the close of 
the Glacial Period, possibly before. No fossil remains of these 
early men have yet been discovered in Britain, although they have 
on the continent. But undoubted tokens of their presence have 
been found in no stinted numbers in the form of roughly chipped 
flint tools and weapons in the gravels deposited by the rivers. 
These early unpolished specimens such as that shown on the slide 
are termed Paleolithic, and have been found in the gravels 
in the valley of the Thames high above its present level, i.e. to say, 
they were deposited there long before the river had cut down to the 
present depth; also at Fisherton near Salisbury, Axminster, and 
numerous other localities. | Man lived here then in company with 
the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the lion, hyena, and 
hippopotamus. Let me quote to you another of the inimitable 
word-pictures scattered throughout Professor B. Dawkins’ ‘“ Karly 
Man in Britain ”’ :— 
‘‘The primeval hunter, who followed the chase in the lower 
valley of the Thames, armed with his rude implements of flint, 
must have found abundance of food, and have had great difficulty 
in guarding himself against the wild animals. Innumerable 
horses, large herds of stags, uri, and bison, were to be seen in the 
open country, while the Irish Elk and the roe were comparatively 
rare. Three kinds of rhinoceros and two kinds of elephant lived 
in the forests. The hippopotamus haunted the banks of the 
Thames, as well ag the beaver, the water-rat, and the otter. There 
were wolves also, and foxes, brown bears and grisly bears, wild 
cats, and lions of enormous size. Wild boars lived in the thickets ; 
and as the night came on the hyenas assembled in packs to hunt 
down the young, the wounded, and the infirm.” 
The union of Ireland to England, and of England to the 
continent was probably continuous during the latter part of the 
Pleistocene Period, lasting long enough for two invasions of 
Paleolithic men, and some think even for the Neolithic. But no 
doubt subsidence was gradually going on, and it was certainly 
completed to severance before all the animals and plants now found 
