EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



the whole class of mammals in the Eocene age 

 was far less highly specialized than it is at the 

 present time. 



From these premises Mr. Boyd Dawkins 

 argues, with convincing force, that man could 

 not possibly have existed in Europe, and prob- 

 ably nowhere on the earth, during the Eocene 

 period. At a time when the order of ungulates 

 had not clearly developed the distinction be- 

 tween camels and pigs and horses, and when 

 the order of primates was only just beginning 

 to be distinguished from other orders, so that 

 Cuvier could even mistake a primate for an 

 ungulate, at such a time was it at all likely 

 that man, the most highly specialized of all 

 primates, or of all animals, could have existed ? 

 Obviously, he could not have existed at such 

 a time. The supposition is absurd on the face 

 of it. As Mr. Boyd Dawkins says, " to seek for 

 highly specialized man in a fauna where no liv- 

 ing genus of placental mammal was present 

 would be an idle and hopeless quest." 



Coming to the Miocene age, we find traces 

 of extensive submergences of parts of the 

 European continent, followed by reelevations. 

 Considerable portions of Gaul and Italy were 

 laid under water, and at one time the whole 

 basin of the Danube was covered by a sea 

 which connected with the Mediterranean near 

 Berne, thus reducing Switzerland and Italy to 



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