2S6 FOSSIL MEN. 



Geikie, in his work, " The Ice Age/' that the re- 

 mains of Palaeolithic men are not Post-glacial, but 

 belong to a Pre-glacial or Inter-glacial period. This 

 is, no doubt, a view forced upon him by his belief in a 

 great continenbal " ice-sheet/' which itself, as I have 

 shown in former works, in all probability without 

 good foundation.* He supports it principally on the/ 

 geographical distribution of the animals supposed to ! 

 have been contemporary with Palaeolithic man, and 

 which he tries to divide into two successive groups ; 

 and on the probability that the last period of continen- 

 tal elevation referred to in the table above was not of 

 a character to change the insular climate of western 

 Europe. With reference to the first of these reasons, 

 Dawkins has shown, on the evidence of Cresswell 

 Cave and other bone caves, that no such division of 

 Post-glacial mammals can be made. The hyasna, the ' 

 reindeer, and the hippopotamus occur together in 

 the same deposits. Again, this Post-glacial fauna has 

 been shown to be of the nature of a continental and 

 prairie fauna, belonging to a state of Europe when 

 it must have presented that condition of steppe-like 

 plains and wooded hills and river courses which is, of 

 all others, the most suited to a varied and abundant 

 group of land animals. I may add that it is most un- 

 safe to reason as to the climate required by extinct 

 mammalia, especially in contravention of the evidence 

 of contemporaneous existence afforded by the occur- 

 rence of their remains. Even the hippopotamus of the 

 * " Story of the Earth and Man," " Acadian Geology." 



