We find that the land underwent many subsequent changes; it rose from the sea, was again covered with ice, and many parts of Europe were devastated by immense glaciers—that of the Rhone extending for more than two hundred miles. Then came vegetation as the ice gave way, and luxuriance of the tropics reigned; more cold after that, then more heat, till the ice was finally driven to its mountain fastnesses, and “Britain for the last time became continental. Neolithic man came upon the scene; his palæolithic predecessor had, as far as Britain and northern Europe are concerned, vanished for ever.” The inquiry respecting the arrival and presence of man in Britain would lead us too far in pursuit. The fact has been established that man was living in the Thames valley while tropical animals were in the country, and he has been classed by Professor Boyd-Dawkins amongst the mid-pleistocene mammalia, and at that distant period, man as man, and not as an intermediate form connecting the human race with the lower animals, was present in Europe.
The stone implements which have been found in river beds and in caverns, associated with the bones of various animals, such as the elephant, rhinoceros, hyæna, bear, and others prove this. These very ancient and rudely-fashioned implements have been divided into two classes, the Palæolithic and the Neolithic, by Sir John Lubbock. First the stone implements were used, and stone was superseded by bronze and iron. Then we come to the historic period. In the neolithic period we find stone implements in the lake dwellings of Switzerland and Constance (as well as the Lake of Neuchatel), all of which have lately developed many treasures. Bronze tools have also been found, and so the gradual progress of man as a fashioner of weapons can be traced from age to age.
From the “river-drift” man we descend to the cave-man, who is supposed to have been identical with the Esquimaux. When Britain became an island the cave-man seems to have disappeared from our country, and in the prehistoric age the earliest of the present inhabitants came here, and brought with them domestic animals; then the Celts of the bronze age, and then the iron. The wild beasts gradually disappeared, and domestic ones occupied their places under civilized conditions.[30]
So we come from the “Glacial period” to the open door of history through the antechamber of the prehistoric time.
The prehistoric is the arbitrary division between the post-pliocene or pleistocene and the known “historic” periods of the world’s history, and we must dismiss it with a few general remarks, for the changes which we have attempted to follow are still taking place in the earth; volcanoes and earthquakes are unsettling the strata, and adding to the physical and geographical record which will some day have to be written by posterity and future geologists. We can see in those prehistoric times traces of men (hunters and fishers) existing with difficulty, mayhap, in the midst of enormous quadrupeds, and fighting for existence with the bears and many other formidable foes. We have noticed the stone ages, the rough and the smooth as they may be called, and we can picture the primitive agriculture and work of the neolithic man. But it is by no means to be believed that neolithic man in Britain was a race all over the world. We may assume that in eastern climes the human race were in a more civilized condition as improvements made their way slowly westward. Our island history commences in the time of Julius Cæsar. Eastern chronicles go back many thousands of years farther.
Fig. 688.—Carboniferous Flora.
It is so short a time, geologically speaking, since man appeared within the limits of history, that the earth’s changes, except from direct volcanic action or water erosion, are very trifling. The change is, as we said, continually proceeding; ceaselessly the earth is wearing away, and depositing her riches where she is undisturbed by civilization and man’s excavations and intrusions. The rock is worn by water; the grit is carried down and deposited to form sedimentary rocks as of old; the lime will continue to assist the coral to be built up; and the chalk cliffs will be born under the sea, and our organic remains shall be found to tell remote ages that we were an enlightened people. For all we can tell, and it is by no means unlikely another recurring cycle of Arctic and Tropical periods will in time pass over our earth; the bear and reindeer, the hippopotamus and the rhinoceros, may again inhabit our islands. If our generation be destroyed, the purely animal creation with the vegetable world will reign over the land, and new forests will deposit new coal measures for the support and comfort of a new generation of highly organized beings, when our remains shall have passed away to the borders of a “prehistoric” age.
We have seen in the foregoing brief sketch how the world has arrived at its present beautiful condition,—how it has been step by step prepared for us, how nature’s forces have been and are still working according to the immutable laws of the Universe. And, after all, how little we know! What scraps of intelligence only are we able to gather up from the boundless quantity of material which must have been laid down, yet what wondrous results scientists have been able to adduce from even these comparatively scanty specimens! The sea and land are ever telling us the same old story. Man’s research and Bible teaching are found hand in hand in cordial and reverent agreement. Nothing is altered since the day that the Divine command, “Let there be light,” went forth into space, and till the earth be destroyed the same forces will continue in operation, guided by the Hand that made it—“ever faithful, ever sure.”
