478 EARLY MAN 



and Africa to go back for 5,000 years, there will remain a space 

 of from 500 to 1,000 years for the destruction of the Palaeo- 

 cOsmic men and the re-peophng of the old continent by such 

 survivors as founded the Neocosmic peoples. These later 

 peoples, though distinct racially from their predecessors, may 

 represent a race contemporary with them in some regions in 

 which it was possible to survive the great cataclysm, so that we 

 do not need to ask for time to develop such new race.^ 



We cannot but feel some regret that the grand old Palaeo- 

 cosmic race was destined to be swept away by the flood, but it 

 was no doubt better for the world that it should be replaced by 

 a more refined if feebler race. When we see how this has, in 

 some of its forms, reverted to the old type, and emulated, if not 

 surpassed it in filling the earth with violence, we may, perhaps, 

 congratulate ourselves on the extinction of the giant races of the 

 olden time. 



References : — ** Fossil Men," London, 1880. The Antiquity of Man, 

 Princeton Review. " Pre-historic Man in Egypt and the Lebanon," 

 Trans. Vict. Institute, 1884. Pre-historic Times in Eg^pt and Palestine, 

 North American Reviezv, June and July, 1892. 



^ For details of the physical characters of the older races of men I may 

 refer to the works mentioned below, or to the writings of Dawkins and 

 Quatrefages. 



