254 THE EEV. J. MAGENS MELLO^ M.A., P.G.S., ETC., 



changes in the Post-glacial period, induce me to believe, "witli 

 Cartailhac and Mr. Mello, that the early part of the Post-glacial 

 or Palanthropic era was characterised by a milder climate than its 

 later period ; and I think this has much to do with the change in 

 implements and weapons. The earliest men probably subsisted 

 merely on natural fruits and other vegetable productions. To 

 secure these in a mild climate they would require no implements 

 except perhaps to dig for roots, or to crack nuts. If they migrated 

 into a colder climate, or if the climate became more severe, they 

 might be obliged to become hunters and fishermen, and would 

 invent new implements and weapons, not because they had advanced 

 in civilisation, bu.t, as old Lamech has it in Genesis, " because of 

 the ground which the Lord had cursed," and which would no 

 longer yield food to them. At the same time they might contend 

 with one another for the most sheltered and productive stations, 

 and so war might farther stimulate that very questionable advance 

 in civilisation which consists in the improvement of weapons of 

 destruction. We have much to learn as to these matters ; but we 

 must, if we have any regard to physiology and to natural proba- 

 bility, start from the idea that the most primitive men were 

 frugivorous and fitted for a mild climate. In this case we should 

 expect that these most primitive men would leave behind them 

 scarcely any weapons or implements except of the simplest kind, 

 and that their apparent progress in the arts of war and the chase 

 might in reality be evidence, up to a cei'tain point at least, of 

 increasing barbarism. Primitive as well as modern men pi-esent in 

 these respects strange paradoxes. This subject I have discussed in 

 my work, Fossil Men. 



5. I fully agree with Mr. Mello that there is a decided physical 

 break between the Palanthropic and Neanthropic ages, aud am sur- 

 prised that any geologist should doubt this. We have not only the 

 remarkable change in the races of men and in their animal 

 associates, but when we know that the whole geographical features 

 of our continents have changed since the Palanthropic age, and that 

 not only are our continents reduced in size since the conti:iental 

 Post-glacial period, but that there is evidence of re-elevation as well 

 as subsidence, and this within a short period, say 10,000 years, less 

 the historic period on the one hand, and the early Palanthropic 

 period on the other, it seems impossible to doubt the greatness 

 and suddenness of the physical break that divides the Anthropic 

 age into two distinct portions. If we suppose, for example, that 



