THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



present level. So it really would not change 

 matters very much even if we found that we 

 must trace him further back into still more an- 

 cient and strange landscapes of this globe. It 

 is true that all traces of civilization disappear 

 at this point. We do not know of a single piece 

 of flint stone in the first half of the Tertiary 

 period, or even of the saurian period following 

 it, which would show the traces of the human 

 hand. But long before we reach this point, we 

 may observe a gradual divergence of these flint 

 stone tools. They grow cruder and cruder. Is 

 it too wild a speculation to suppose that men 

 may have existed even beyond that time who 

 may not have possessed sufficient civilization even 

 to fashion the simplest stone tools ? In that case, 

 we could not expect to find any stone tools as 

 witnesses. 



But, one might say, there should at least be 

 genuine human bones preserved in a fossil state 

 in the solid rocks together with skeletons of the 

 ichthyosaurians ? Still, this objection would not 

 carry much weight. We know very well that not 

 all of the living beings which once lived upon 

 this earth left their fossil bones behind. The 

 bones may have been destroyed, for human bones 

 particularly are not very durable. Or they may 



,./, 



