176 Notices of Memoi7's — J. Gellae, A^itiqidty of Man. 



archaeologist had no diiSciilty in recognizing and distinguishing 

 palaeolithic implements at once from relics of the neolithic age. They 

 found no tools or implements of intermediate forms that might indicate 

 a gradual improvement and progress from the rude palasolithic tj'pes 

 to the polished and elegant imj)lements used hy neolithic man. The 

 one set of tools was sharply marked off from the other. The con- 

 clusion could not be resisted that the people who used the palgeolithic 

 implements were much less advanced, and decidedly inferior in 

 mechanical skill and contrivance to the race or races by whom the 

 polished implements were fashioned. A distinct passage could be 

 traced from the new stone period into the bronze age ; biit between 

 the disappearance of paleolithic man and the advent of neolithic man 

 there occurred a blank which the ingenuity of archaeologists had 

 hitherto failed to bridge over. The lecturer then proceeded to de- 

 scribe the positions in which palEeolithic implements were found, 

 viz. in caves and in ancient river gravels. As a good example of 

 the former he instanced Kent's Cavei'n in Devonshire, and gave some 

 details as to the mode in which the implements were associated with 

 the remains of extinct mammalia upon the floor of that cave, all 

 buried under a thick cake of stalagmite. The special proofs of the 

 great antiquity of this cavern-deposit were pointed out, the lecturer 

 remarking that now no one who was competent to judge doubted 

 that the animal remains and the hnman relics both belonged to one 

 and the same period or periods. The mammalia he classed under 

 two divisions — first, species which lived, and many of which are 

 still living, under ai'ctic conditions ; and second, species which are 

 either now denizens of temperate and warm regions, or have in those 

 zones their nearest representatives. The first group embraced such 

 animals as the reindeer, glutton, musk-sheep, etc. The second group 

 contained the horse, wolf, wild-cat, extinct cave-bear, Irish deer, and 

 so forth — all being species characteristic of temperate climates ; 

 while as representatives of warm climates we had two species of 

 rhinoceros, the elephant, the hippopotamus, the lion, the hyaena, and 

 others. Mr. Geikie insisted that this commingling of arctic and 

 southern species pointed to former changes of climate, and not, as 

 some had supposed, to a period of strongly contrasted summers and 

 winters, during which great migrations took place. Such a climate 

 could not possibly obtain in Europe under the geographical and 

 physical conditions which are known to have existed during pleis- 

 tocene times. He then recapitulated the geological evidence fur- 

 nished by cave deposits, and showed that nowhere did the palaeolithic 

 deposits pass up gradually into neolithic accumulations. On the 

 contrary, there was a sharp and abrupt break between the older and 

 the later deposits. The evidence relating to the ancient river gravels 

 was next taken up. The position of these deposits was described, and 

 the mode of their formation indicated by means of diagrams. The 

 occurrence in these ancient river beds of palaeolithic implements, and 

 the remains of extinct and no longer indigenous mammalia, fur- 

 nished evidence in regard to changes of climate of precisely the same 

 nature as that supplied by the cave-earths and breccias. It was also 



