1654 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



India, and on the western shore of the Atlantic. The 

 hunter of the reindeer in the valley of the Delaware 

 was to all intents and purposes the same sort of savage 

 as the hunter of the reindeer on the banks of the 

 Wiley or of the Solent. 



It does not, however, follow that this identity of 

 implements implies that the same race of men were 

 spread over this vast tract. It points rather to a pri- 

 meval condition of savagery from which mankind 

 has emerged in the long ages which separate it from 

 our own time. It may further be inferred, from his 

 widespread range, that the River-drift man (assum- 

 ing that mankind sprang from one centre) must have 

 inhabited the earth for a long time, and that his dis- 

 persal took place before the glacial submergence and 

 the lowering of the temperature in Northern Europe, 

 Asia, and America. It is not reasonable to suppose 

 that the Straits of Behring would have offered a free 

 passage, either to the River-drift man from Asia to 

 America, or to American animals from America to 

 Europe, or vice versa, while there was a vast barrier 

 of ice or of sea, or of both, in the high northern lati- 

 tudes. I therefore feel inclined to view the River- 

 drift man as having invaded Europe in pre-glacial 

 time along with the other living species which then 

 appeared. The evidence, as I have already pointed 

 out, is conclusive that he was also glacial and post- 

 glacial. 



In all probability, the birthplace of man was in 

 a warm, if not a tropical, region of Asia "in a gar- 

 den of Eden"; and from this the River-drift man 

 found his way into those regions where his imple- 



