ADDRESS. 1 5 



Vivian and Pcngclly, Christy, Evans and many more, have proved that 

 man formed a humble part of this strange assembly. 



Nay, even at this early period there were at least two distinct races 

 of men in Europe ; one of them — as Boyd Dawkins has pointed out — 

 closely resembling the modern Esquimaux in form, in his weapons and 

 implements, probably in his clothing, as well as in so many of the 

 animals with which he was associated. 



At this stage Man appears to have been ignorant of pottery, to have 

 had no knowledge of agriculture, no domestic animals, except perhaps 

 the dog. His weapons were the axe, the spear, and the javelin ; I do not 

 believe he knew the use of the bow, though he was probably acquainted 

 with the lance. He was, of course, ignorant of metal, and his stone 

 implements, though skilfully formed, were of quite different shapes from 

 those of the second Stone age, and were never ground. This earlier Stone 

 period, when man co-existed with these extinct mammalia, is known as 

 the Palfeolithic, or Early Stone Age, in opposition to the Neolithic, or 

 Newer Stone Age. 



The remains of the mammalia which co-existed with man in pre- 

 historic times have been most carefully studied by Owen, Lartet, Riiti- 

 meyer. Falconer, Busk, Boyd-Dawkins, and others. The presence of the 

 mammoth, the reindeer, and especially of the musk-ox, indicates a severe, 

 not to say an arctic, climate — the existence of which, moreover, was 

 proved by other considerations ; while, on the contrary, the hippopotamus 

 requires considerable warmth. How then is this association to be ex- 

 plained ? 



While the climate of the globe is, no doubt, much affected by geo- 

 graphical conditions, the cold of the glacial period was, I believe, mainly 

 due to the greater excentricity of the earth's orbit combined with the 

 effects of precession of the ecliptic. The result of the latter condition 

 is a period of 21,000 years, during one half of which the northern hemi- 

 sphere is warmer than the southern, while during the other 10,500 years 

 the reverse is the case. At present we are in the former phase, and there 

 is, we know, a vast accumulation of ice at the south pole. But when the 

 earth's orbit is nearly circular, as it is at present, the difference between 

 the two hemispheres is not very great; while, on the contrary, as the 

 excentricity of the orbit increases, the contrast between them increases 

 also. This excentricity is continually oscillating within certain limits, 

 which Croll and subsequently Stone have calculated for the last million 

 years. At present the excentricity is -OIG and the mean tempera- 

 ture of the coldest month in London is about 40°. Such has been the 

 state of things for nearly 100,000 years ; but before that there was a 

 period, beginning 300,000 years ago, when the excentricity of the orbit 

 varied from -26 to -57. The result of this would be greatly to increase 

 the effect due to the obliquity of the orbit ; at certain periods the climate 

 would be much warmer than at present, while at others the number of 

 days in winter would be twenty more, and of summer twenty less, than 



