i88o.] The Antiquity of Mankind. 313 
Meiocene fauna, not merely of Europe, but of the whole 
world.” 
This argument, in the absence of diredt evidence of the 
existence of man in the Meiocene epoch, seems incontro- 
vertible. It will be at once, however, perceived that— how- 
ever conclusive against the presence of man, in the strictest 
sense of the term — it does not disprove the existence of 
beings somewhat closely approaching him. Dr. Hamy, 
M. De Mortillet, and others assert, indeed, that man inha- 
bited France in the middle of the Meiocene epoch. Splinters 
of flint and the notched rib of an extinct manatee ( Halithe - 
rium have been found in Meiocene deposits. Granting that 
such deposits had been undisturbed, the^ author and Prof. 
Gandry venture to ask whether these relics can have been 
the work of the Dryopithecus , a huge extindt anthropoid ape, 
rather than of man. No present apes are known to use 
stones except for nut-cracking. But Mr. Dawkins thinks it 
not improbable that some of the extina higher apes may 
have possessed qualities not now found in their living suc- 
cessors. We must remember that the doarine of Evolution 
nowise supposes an universal advance throughout the ani- 
mal kingdom. There is nothing absurd or contradiaory in 
the supposition that some species little inferior to man, or 
to the direa ancestors of man, may have become extina. 
In the Pleiocene age the improbability of the existence of 
man is greatly lessened. Not merely genera, but in any 
case one mammalian species is found to have survived down 
to our own days. But unfortunately, in these very forma- 
tions, we have one of the most annoying instances of the 
“ imperfeaions of the geological record.” In Britain, at 
least, the strata of this epoch are either marine or have 
been subjected to the adtion of the sea. In France and 
Italy, however, we find marmots, elephants, oxen, and dogs 
making their first appearance in the world. Still Mr. Daw- 
kins, from considerations very similar to those advanced as 
regards former epochs, considers the advent of man in the 
Pleiocene as highly doubtful. Of twenty-one fossil Mam- 
malia proved to have inhabited Tuscany in this Age, one 
only, the hippopotamus, still survives on this earth. Nor is 
there any decided affirmative evidence to overweigh this 
improbability. 
In the next following, or Pleistocene epoch, the case is 
altered. We are now introduced to mammalian forms still 
inhabiting the earth. Though the mammoth, the cave- 
bear, the Irish elk, and the sabre-toothed tiger still survived, 
such well-known modern species as the shrew, the mole, the 
