138 EVOLUTION OF THE EARTH 



high percentage of certain fossil faunas. Here they throve 

 until the close of the Eocene, when they died out, and North 

 America knew no more primates until the coming of man. 

 They had, however, crossed the isthmian land-bridge or its 

 equivalent into South America, where they still persist. 



Fig. 27. — Map showing the geographical distribution of the primates, living 

 and extinct, and their indicated dispersal from Holarctica. After Matthew, 

 from "Problems of American Geology,'* 1915, published by Yale Uni- 

 versity Press. 



In Europe, the history of primates below man was similar 

 to that in North America, marked by Eocene abundance and 

 synchronous extinction, but during the Miocene, at the time 

 of the proboscidean migrations, they reappeared, probably 

 from Africa, to suffer a second extinction during the Pleisto- 



