ON BIOLOGY. 43 



It is most natural that that department of palaeontology 

 which takes Into consideration the geological history of 

 man is the one that has always been of the greatest 

 interest to the world at large. For some time past our 

 knowledge of the history of man in its entirety has been 

 sufficiently extensive so as to admit of its being system- 

 atically arranged under various heads and divisions. 

 Students in archaeology see three main divisions or ages, 

 as they are called, in the history of human progress and 

 civilization. These are first the Stone age including that 

 lapse of time when men employed stone principally to 

 form their tools and weapons. Early in his history such 

 material was simply chipped out to serve his purpose, 

 and that time is referred to as the Palaeolithic period; 

 but during the latter part of the stone age men came to 

 polish those chipped stone implements, and that time has 

 been designated as the Neolithic period. The Paleolithic 

 period has again been subdivided into a Reindeer age 

 corresponding with the second Glacial epoch, and a Mam- 

 moth age, corresponding with the Champlain epoch. 

 With the Neolithic commences the present Psychozoic 

 era, and the reign of man is completely established 

 These ages, however, are not universally represented, nor 

 do they everywhere, by any means, closely correspond 

 with the geological horizons I have mentioned. This 

 will be clear when we come to tnink that it is only three 

 hundred years ago that our Indians were in the Stone age 

 and the South Sea Islanders have, as yet, progressed no 

 farther than the Neolithic period to-day. It is in Europe 

 that the correspondences are the closest, for it is due to 

 the archaeologists of that country to have first clearlv 

 established them. 



Our two remaining ages in the history of human civili- 

 zation are the age of Bronze and the Iron age, but their 

 consideration falls completely within the pale of modern 

 history, and so does not especially concern us here 



Every year that goes by rewards the researches of the 

 archaeologist in various parts of the world with the dis- 

 covery of relics which tend to throw more or less light 

 upon the history of primeval man upon earth For the 

 most part these consist either of examples of his ancient 

 works or of the remains of man himself. And we mav 

 add here, that notwithstanding the fact that the evidence 

 on the side of the question of man having arisen in time 

 from the most lowly ancestors, by evolutional develop- 

 ment, it is, nevertheless, true that up to the present time 

 all the remains we have of him go to show that nothing 



