22 ANCESTRAL MAN. 



" presented no connection to the uninitiated eye, but looked like 

 " the stars scattered promiscuously in the firmament. Having 

 " with much deliberation satisfied himself of the sufficiency of 

 " these dots, he forthwith began to run a free, bold line from one 

 " to the other, and as he did so, the form of an animal, horse, 

 " buffalo, antelope, gradually developed itself. He said that this 

 " was the plan which was invariably followed by his tribe in 

 " making their clever pictures." 



Mesolithic men, with minds of this order, sitting at the entrance 

 of a cave and watching the stars go by, would soon call the con- 

 stellations by name. For our parts, we may see very little of a 

 bear in Ursa Major, and not much of a man in Orion. But how 

 easily they would fill in the outlines that our imagination is unable 

 to complete, and behold at once a hunter, a wolf, or a dragon. 



It is generally believed that the Cave Man's lineal descendants 

 are the modern Eskimo. They use corresponding weapons, 

 fashion their flints in like manner, hunt kindred animals, leave 

 round their camping ground the same sort of relics, and possess a 

 similar artistic faculty. 



Mr. Galton says, " One Eskimo drew from memory a chart of 

 " the region over which he had, at one time or another, gone in 

 " his canoe. It extended over a distance, in a straight line, of 

 "more than 1,100 English miles, the coast being so indented by 

 " arms of the sea that its real length is six times as great. On 

 " comparing this rough Eskimo outline with the Admiralty Chart 

 "of 1870, their accordance is remarkable. I have seen many 

 " route-maps made by travellers in past years, and I have never 

 " known of any traveller in Africa, Asia, or Australia, who, being 

 " unprovided with surveying instruments, and trusting to his 

 " memory alone, has produced a chart comparable in extent and 

 " accuracy to that of this barbarous Eskimo." 



And now the Glacial Epoch and the ancient stone age were 

 together drawing to a close. Those men whose bodily structure 

 and habits had become fixed would be compelled, on pain of 

 extinction, to follow the reindeer in his retreat towards the arctic 

 circle, where, indeed, they are still associated, reindeer and 

 Eskimo. 



Others, becoming adapted to an altered environment, may have 

 remained behind, surviving the vast changes, both in climate and 

 in the distribution of land and water, that now took place. 

 Africa in the south, as Already America in the north, was severed 

 from Europe, and Greenland, Ireland, and England became 

 insulated. 



As the land continued to sink, or the waters to rise, any 

 remnants of the Mesolithic Race must have been left stranded, 

 as it were, on a British Archipelago. Cut off, in many cases, 

 from chalk-districts, they must have manufactured weapons from 



