456 RECENT ADYANCES IN GEOLOGY. 
But we must accord to him one redeeming trait. That 
homage which, in all ages and among all nations, the living 
pay to the deaa : those ceremonies which are observed at the 
hour of final separation; that care which is exerted to pro- 
tect the manes fron) all profane intrusion; and those delicate 
acts, prompted by love or affection, which, we fondly hope, 
will smooth the passage of the parting spirit to the happy 
land—all these observances our rude ancestors maintained. 
These facts show that, deep as man may sink in barbarism, 
brutal as he may hecome in his instincts, there is still a 
redeeming spirit which prompts to higher aspirations, and 
that to him, even, there is no belief so dreary as that of 
utter annihilation. 
Perhaps, among the existing tribes of the human race in 
the Aretie Highlander, as described by Sherard Osborn, 
we have the nearest approach to the prehistoric man : — 
* Although dwarfed in stature, they are thick-set, strong-limbed, deep- 
singe pa base-voiced, and capable of vigorous and prolonged exer- 
tion. I 
tables and cereals, they have of course no conception, and I know of no 
other people on the earth's surface, who are thus entirely carniverous." 
After the lapse of a period whose interval cannot be 
measured, the great animals which characterized the dawn of 
the Human Epoch, began to disappear, and were replaced by 
other forms of diminished size, but of improved type. 
Among these, on the European continent, were the reindeer, 
the pinot, the stag, the bison, and urus, together with 
the horse, not distinguishable from the existing species. 
The reindeer and musk-ox, which only thrive in a cold cli- 
mate, not only oceupied England, but wandered as far south 
in France as the shores of the Mediterranean and the slopes 
of the Pyrenees, which interposed effectual barriers to theit 
further progress. 
The reindeer must have existed in vast herds, und to the 
primeval man have proved the most useful of animals. 
