THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



teach us that there were at a certain period, first, 

 let us say, ruminants, later on, perhaps rodents, 

 then carnivora, and finally monkeys. Nor do 

 they show that there were at first no other higher 

 mammals than monkeys, and then in successive 

 periods ruminants, rodents, etc. We rather re- 

 ceive the impression that all of these groups ap- 

 peared simultaneously at a certain period. 



Now it is precisely the progress in our knowl- 

 edge of extinct mammals which succeeded finally 

 in leading us out of this labyrinth of contradic- 

 tory assumptions. 



All those groups of mammals still appeared in 

 the first third of the Tertiary period, the so- 

 called Eocene period, to which we have re- 

 peatedly referred. Monkeys, as we have seen, 

 were among them. Hence, if we desire to learn 

 more about the origin of these things, we must 

 trace our steps further back, say to the beginning 

 of this Eocene period. 



Now we have found in two places far distant 

 from one another in France near Cernays in the 

 vicinity of Reims, and in North America in New 

 Mexico the bones of certain_^xtremely ojd, 

 mammalsj)eloriging to just this period, and these 

 bpnes^ explain the mystery very fully. On the 

 one hand, all of these bones' have a very simple 



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