1680 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



ternary Period, we establish the fact, which is 

 agreeable to the cosmogony of Moses, that man was 

 formed after the other animals, and that by his ad- 

 vent he crowned the edifice of animal creation. 



At the Quaternary Period almost all the animals 

 of our time had already seen the light, and a cer- 

 tain number of animal species existed which were 

 shortly to disappear. When man was created, the 

 mammoth, the great bear, the cave tiger, and the 

 cervus megaceros animals more bulky, more robust, 

 and more agile than the corresponding species of 

 our time filled the forests and peopled the plains. 

 The first men were therefore contemporary with the 

 woolly elephant, the cave bear and tiger; they had 

 to contend with these savage phalanxes, as formida- 

 ble in their number as their strength. Nevertheless, 

 in obedience to the laws of nature, these animals were 

 to disappear from the globe and give place to smaller 

 or different species, while man, persisting in the 

 opposite direction, increased and multiplied, as the 

 Scripture has said, and gradually spread into all in- 

 habitable countries, taking possession of his empire, 

 which daily increased with the progress of his intel- 

 ligence. 



Did man see the light at any one spot of the earth, 

 and at that alone, and is it possible to indicate the 

 region which was, so to say, the cradle of humanity? 

 Or are we to believe that, in the first instance, man 

 appeared in several places at the same time? That 

 he was created and has always remained in the very 

 localities he now inhabits? That the Negro was 

 born in the burning regions of Central Africa, the 



