drupeds, retreated into the higher grounds. * * *

"Fourthly, the next and last change comprised the breaking up of the
land of the British area once more into numerous islands, ending in
the present geographical condition of things. There were probably many
oscillations of level during this last conversion of continuous land
into islands, and such movements in opposite directions would account
for the occurrence of marine shells at moderate heights above the
level of the sea, notwithstanding a general lowering of the land. * * *
During this period a gradual amelioration of temperature took place,
from the cold of the glacial period to the climate of historical
times."[134]

The second continental period above referred to is that which appears
on the best evidence to have been the time of the introduction of man;
but such facts as that of the Settle Cave, and the implements of the
breccia in Kent's Cave, if rightly interpreted, would make man
preglacial or "interglacial."

The deposits found in caverns in France, Switzerland, Germany,
Belgium, and England have afforded a large proportion of the remains
from which we derive our notions of the most ancient prehistoric men
of Europe. From the Belgian caves, as explored by M. Dupont, we learn
that there were two successive prehistoric races, both rude or
comparatively uncivilized. The first were men of Turanian type, but of
great bodily stature and high cerebral organization, and showing
remarkable skill in the manufacture of implements and ornaments of
bone and ivory. These men are believed to have been contemporary with
the earlier postglacial mammals, as the mammoth and hairy rhinoceros,
and to have lived at a time when the European land was more extensive
than at present, stretching far to the west of Ireland, and connecting
Great Britain with the Continent. The skeletons found at Cro-Magnon,
Mentone, and elsewhere in France fully confirm the deductions of
Dupont as to this earliest race of Palaeocosmic, Palaeolithic, or
antediluvian man. This grand race seems to have perished or been
driven from Europe by the great depression of the level of the land
which inaugurated the modern era, and which was probably accompanied
by many oscillations of level as well as by considerable changes of
climate. They were succeeded by a second race, equally Turanian in
type, but of small stature, and resembling the modern Lapps. These
were the "allophylian" peoples displaced by the hi