﻿414 Canadian Record of Science. 



belong to so late a date as these artistic cavern-remains ; 

 but tlie greatly superior antiquity of even these to any 

 Neolithic relics is testified by the thick layer of stalagmite, 

 which had been deposited in Kent's Cavern before its 

 occupation by men of the Neolithic and Bronze Periods. 



Towards the close of the period covered by the human 

 occupation of the French caves, there seems to have been 

 a dwindling in the number of the larger animals con- 

 stituting the Quaternary fauna, whereas their remains are 

 at present in abundance in the lower and therefore more 

 recent of the gravel levels. This circumstance may afford 

 an argument in favor of regarding the period represented 

 by the later French caves as a continuation of that during 

 which the old river gravels were deposited, and yet 

 the great change in the fauna that has taken place since 

 the latest of the cave-deposits included in the Palaeolithic 

 Period is indicative of an immense lapse of time. 



How much greater must have been the time required 

 for the more conspicuous change between the old 

 Quaternary fauna of the river gravels and that character- 

 istic of the Neolithic Period ! 



As has been pointed out by Prof. Boyd Dawkins, only 

 thirty-one out of the forty-eight well-ascertained species 

 living in the post-Glacial or l^iver-drift Period survived 

 into pre-historic or Neolithic times. We have not, 

 indeed, any means at command for estimating the number 

 of centuries which such an important change indicates ; 

 but when we remember that the date of the commencement 

 of the Neolithic or Surface Stone Period is 'still shrouded 

 in the midst of a dim antiquity, and that prior to that 

 commencement the Piver-drift Period had long come 

 to an end ; and when we furtlier take into account 

 the almost inconceivable ages that even under the most 

 favorable conditions the excavation of wide and deep 

 valleys by river action implies, the remoteness of the date 

 at which the Palaeolithic Period had its beginning almost 

 transcends our powers of imagination. 



