40 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



CHAPTER IV 



THE PALANTHROPIC AGE 1 



WE have now to inquire more particularly what we 

 can learn as to the earliest men known to us, those 

 who appeared in Western Asia and Europe at the 

 close of the glacial period, when the cold had passed 

 away and a genial climate had succeeded, and when 

 the continents of the northern hemisphere had attained 

 to their largest dimensions, were clothed with a rich 

 vegetation and tenanted by an abundant mammalian 

 fauna, including many large and important creatures 

 now extinct. 



We may first notice here a necessary limitation to 

 our knowledge. The dry land of this age was of 

 greater dimensions than at present. A large portion 

 of what then was land is consequently now under the 

 sea or deeply buried in alluvial deposits. Hence if 

 any men of this age lived near the borders of the 

 ocean, their remains must now be inaccessible, and 

 the relics which we find must be those of inland tribes 



1 Called by some ' Palaeolithic,* from the use of implements like 

 hat figured on p. 41. 



