ON PRIMITIVE MAN : I. HIS TIMES AND HIS COMPANIONS. l^O 



Sir J. W. Uawsox, C.M.G., F.R.S., Tvrites :— 



The paper of Hev. J. M. Mello seems to me to be a very good 

 summary of what we know of primitive man, from his remains 

 in. the caves and gravels. There are, however, some points on 

 which I think it well to make a few remarks, but they are not 

 intended to be of a critical chai'acter. 



1. As a matter of classification ; while I fully believe that we are 

 living in the later part of the great Tertiary period, and that thei'e 

 is properly no such thing yet as a Quaternary period, I think the 

 term Pleistocene should not be extended to the Post-Glaclal Age. 

 The close of the Glacial period — introducing great physical and 

 climatal changes, many changes in mammalian life and man him- 

 self — should be regarded as the end of the Pleistocene, and the 

 introduction of what some French geologists have called the 

 Anthropic period, which I have elsewhere divided into Palanthropic, 

 corresponding to the so-called Palceolithic age, and Neanthropic, 

 corresponding to the later stone and metal ages.* These may be 

 termed respectively the earlier and later stages of the Modern 

 period as distinguished from the Pleistocene Tertiary. 



2. 1 have more faith than Mr. Mello in our Geological Chrono- 

 meters for the measurement of the date of the Glacial Period. 

 The rate of recession of ISTiagara Palls, for example, proves con- 

 clusively that the close of the glacial age is removed not more, 

 l^robably less, than 10,000 years from this nineteenth century. 

 As is well known many other measures of denudation and deposi- 

 tion correspond with this. 



3. Like Mr. Mello, I attach merely local value to the changes 

 from rude and simple to more perfect and varied implements 

 observed in the caverns of Europe. I^ew settlers in any locality 

 always have rude surroundings, even in our comparatively polished 

 age, and it must always have been so ; while it is well known that 

 contemporary tribes in a rude condition may differ very much in 

 this respect according to circumstances. A tribe situated in 

 districts remote from those affording good flint for implements, 

 and prevented from access to these perhaps by hostile neighbours, 

 must have been inferior in their tools till they could obtain better 

 material. Many other reasons might be adduced for assigning a 

 merely local value to such differences. 



4. At the same time several reasons, in connection with faunal 



* Modem Science in Bible Lands, chap. iii. p. 110. 



