36 Prehistoric Races. 



35. Palaeontology, or the science of extinct or- 

 ganic life, has shown us a series of animals which ex- 

 isted a longtime ago; which were con- 



. , , , . , , Palaeontology, 



temporaneous with man; and which have 



now died out. This seems to indicate a very re- 

 mote antiquity for the prehistoric man who lived 

 with them. Consider the long series of the cave- 

 bear, the cave-hyaena, the mammoth, the woolly 

 rhinoceros, the hippopotamus major, the Irish elk, 

 and such like beasts. Their presence in prehistoric 

 man's time is betrayed by genuine fossils, or the 

 remains of their bony structures, which, whether 

 petrified or not, have been unearthed, or dug up, 

 that is to say, are "fossil." And that man lived 

 with them is shown by his industrial remains, or 

 his own bones being found among theirs. All 

 these species of animals are now extinct; and how 

 far away in the past must the man coeval with 

 them have lived and died ! " One's head is seized 

 with dizziness !" is the reflection of the modern 

 thinker, M. Renan: On est pris de vertige ! 



34. Scientists, however, criticizing this point a 

 little, have merely asked some pertinent questions: 



How long does it take a species to die ? 

 Species 10U ° Whatever time it may take, did these 



species wait for another, and gracefully 

 walk off the stage, each in its turn ? Suppose the 

 environment did become unfit for them, and this, 

 indeed, was the chief cause of their extinction, 

 must it have been quite slow in becoming so ? Or, 



