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The Museum Gazette 



Who were the peoples who witnessed this vast catastrophe 

 — international in a literal sense — and what was its date ? 

 We have called the men primaeval, but they may have been 

 Laplanders or relations of the Esquimaux, and as to the 

 exact date, only conjectures can be offered. We know for 

 certain that it occurred long after the last Ice Age, and 

 of course long after the last submergence of that part of 

 Europe now known as Britain. Subsequent to these events 

 troups of wild animals, elephants, rhinoceroses, and even 

 slow-travelling snakes, had passed westwards, and had found 

 themselves hindered only when they reached the shores of 

 the Irish Sea. A vast flora of eastern and southern plants 

 had also been brought onwards towards the north-west. 

 Whilst many of these have perished, many are nourishing 

 to this day. After the detachment such spreading must have 

 been much restricted, as, indeed, it already had been for many 

 thousands of years in the case of Ireland. 



In the ages which have passed since the isthmus became 

 a strait the width of the Channel has been steadily increasing 

 by falls of the cliffs on either side, and even at the present 

 day, in spite of the entente covdiale, France and England are 

 becoming more and more distant as regards each other. 



We give the above sketch as what seems the most probable, 

 and not without the knowledge that other speculations have 

 been advanced ; such, for instance, as that the separation was 

 effected along the bed of a primaeval river ; or that it occurred 

 co-incidentally with a great land elevation. 



The Fish-hunger of Vegetarians. — Louis Stevenson m " In the 

 South Seas " mentions that " in at least one ocean language, a 

 particular word denotes that a man is 'hungry for fish ' having reached 

 a stage when vegetables can no longer satisfy." In these islands flesh 

 food other than fish is rarely obtainable except by cannibalism, and 

 hence the great value which attaches to fish. In most of them 

 leprosy has long prevailed, perhaps in all. It is to this fish-hunger, 

 which is common to all people who are for the most part restricted to 

 vegetable food, that those who hold that leprosy is d ie to fish-eating 

 attribute its prevalence near to fishing stations, and its occasional 

 occurrence at a great distance from them. 



