THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



be buried in certain places of the earth which 

 we cannot investigate to-day, because they may 

 be at the bottom of the sea, or covered by the 

 perennial ice of polar regions. How often has 

 not this earth been shaken through and through 

 and turned inside out in these long, long periods ? 

 Strata, which were once sediment at the bottom 

 of the sea and which are still full of sea shells, 

 are now found on the high summits of the Alps. 

 On the other hand, entire mountain ranges, 

 grund into sand, are now found in the flat 

 sandstone of the plains, or at the bottom of the 

 sea. Many of the remains of the primitive world 

 have certainly been destroyed in this wild chaos, 

 have been ground into powder, or broken to 

 pieces. We get a vague conception of, this when 

 we see that even the gigantic monsters of those 

 primitive days have frequently left but one single 

 bone, a thigh bone or skull of one single indi- 

 vidual. That is to say, while thousands and 

 thousands of individuals of this species lived once 

 upon a time, only the scant remains of one single 

 individual have come down to our time. 



Then too, there is still another possibility which 

 is far more interesting. It is very probable that 

 we may not recognize the man of those far dis- 

 tant days, even if some of his bones were pre- 

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