THE PALANTHROP1C AGE 65 



diluvian world with violence, and who reappear in 

 postdiluvian times as the Anakim and traditional 

 giants, who constitute a feature in the early history of 

 so many countries. Perhaps nothing is more curious 

 in the revelations as to the most ancient cave men 

 than that they confirm the old belief that there were 

 'giants in those days.' At the same time we must 

 bear in mind that the more diminutive race which 

 survived must have existed previously in some part of 

 the world, and must have furnished the survivors of 

 the succeeding subsidence (see illustration on p. 82). 



And now let us pause for a moment to picture 

 these so-called palaeolithic men. What could the ' Old 

 Man of Cro-magnon ' have told us, had we been able 

 to sit by his hearth and listen understandingly to his 

 speech ? which, if we may judge from the form of 

 his palate-bones, must have resembled more that of 

 the Americans or Mongolians than of any modern 

 European people. He had, no doubt, travelled far, 

 for to his stalwart limbs a long journey through 

 forests and over plains and mountains would be a 

 mere pastime. He may have bestridden the wild 

 horse, which seems to have abounded at the time in 

 France, and he may have launched his canoe on the 

 waters of the Atlantic. His experience and memory 

 might extend back a century or more, and his tradi- 

 tional lore might go back to the times of the first 

 mother of our race. Did he live in that wide post- 

 pliocene continent which extended westward through 

 Ireland ? Did he know and had he visited the more 







