92 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



in their arts than other rude peoples. In opposition 

 to all this we have not only the remarkable change 

 in the races of men and in their animal associates, 

 but when we know that the whole geographical fea- 

 tures of our continents have changed since the palan- 

 thropic age, and that not only are our continents 

 reduced in size since the continental post-glacial 

 period, but that there is evidence of re-elevation as 

 well as subsidence, and this within a short period- 

 say eight thousand years less the historic period on 

 the one hand and the early palanthropic on the 

 other it seems impossible to doubt the greatness 

 and suddenness of the physical break that divides 

 the anthropic age into two distinct portions. All 

 this may be held to be certainly known as geological 

 fact, and it would be folly to overlook it in any 

 discussions as to primitive man, or in any com- 

 parisons of the evidence afforded by his remains with 

 that of early human history or tradition. 



But if man was a witness of and sufferer in 

 this great catastrophe, and if any men survived it, 

 did they preserve no tradition or memory of such 

 a stupendous event ? We may imagine this to be 

 possible. The survivors may have belonged to the 

 rudest and most isolated of the races of men, and 

 may have had no means of knowing the extent of the 

 disaster or of preserving its memory. On the other 

 hand, they may have attained to a sufficient degree of 

 culture to have had some means of perpetuating the 

 memory of great events. If so, we may imagine that 



