Aveust 20, 1897. ] 
indications to aid us in forming any chrono- 
logical scale. 
The occupation of some of the caves in 
the south of France seems to have been 
carried on after the erosion of the neighbor- 
ing river valleys had ceased, and so far as 
our knowledge goes these caves offer evi- 
dence of being the latest in time of those 
occupied by man during the Paleolithic 
Period. It seems barely possible that, 
though in the north of Europe there are no 
distinct signs of such late occupation, yet 
that, in the south, man may have lived on, 
though in diminished numbers; and that 
in some of the caves, such, for instance, as 
those in the neighborhood of Mentone, 
there may be traces of his existence during 
the transitional period that connects the 
Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages. If this 
were really the case we might expect to 
find some traces of a dissemination of Neo- 
lithic culture from a north Italian center, 
but I much doubt whether any such traces 
actually exist. 
If it had been in that part of the world 
that the transition took place, how are we 
to account for the abundance of polished 
stone hatchets found in central India? Did 
Neolithic man return eastward by the same 
route as that by which in remote ages his 
Paleolithic predecessor had migrated west- 
ward? Would it not be in defiance of all 
probability to answer such a question in 
the affirmative? We have, it must be con- 
fessed, nothing of a substantial character to 
guide us in these speculations; but, pend- 
ing the advent of evidence to the contrary, 
we may, I think, provisionally adopt the 
view that, owing to the failure of food, 
climatal changes or other causes, the oc- 
cupation of western Europe by Paleolithic 
man absolutely ceased, and that it was not 
until after an interval of long duration that 
Europe was re-peopled by arace of men im- 
migrating from some other part of the globe 
where the human race had survived, and 
SCIENCE, 
281 
in course of ages had developed a higher 
stage of culture than that of Paleolithic 
man. 
I have been carried away by the liberty 
allowed for conjecture into the regions of 
pure imagination, and must now return to 
the realms of fact, and one fact on which I 
desire for a short time to insist is that of 
the existence at the present day, in close 
juxtaposition with our own civilization, of 
races of men who, at all events but a few 
generations ago,.lived under much the same 
conditions as did our own Neolithic prede- 
cessors in Europe. 
The manners and customs of these primi- 
tive tribes and peoples are changing day by 
day, their languages are becoming obsolete, 
their myths and traditions are dying out, 
their ancient processes of manufacture are 
falling into oblivion, and their numbers are 
rapidly diminishing, so that it seems inevi- 
table that ere long many of these interest- 
ing populations will become absolutely ex- 
tinct. The admirable Bureau of Ethnology 
instituted by our neighbors in the United 
States of America has done much towards 
preserving a knowledge of the various na- 
tive races in this vast continent, and here 
in Canada the annual Archeological Re- 
ports presented to the Minister of Educa- 
tion are rendering good service in the same 
cause. 
Moreover, the committee of this Associa- 
tion appointed to investigate the physical 
characters, languages and industrial and 
social conditions of the Northwestern tribes 
of the Dominion of Canada is about to pre- 
sent its twelfth and final report, which, in 
conjunction with those already presented, 
will do much towards preserving a knowl- 
edge of the habits and languages of those 
tribes. It is sad to think that Mr. Horatio 
Hale, whose comprehensive grasp of the 
bearings of ethnological questions, and 
whose unremitting labors have so materi- 
ally conduced to the success of the com- 
