A Manual of the Antiquity of ManMacLean, J. P. (John Patterson)
History
A Manual of the Antiquity of Man
MacLean, J. P. (John Patterson)
Human beings -- Origin
The tertiary period began with the close of the cretaceous. A map of the
early tertiary period would represent parts of Maryland, Virginia, the
Carolinas, Georgia, the whole of Florida, the lower parts of Alabama,
Mississippi, Texas, the whole of Louisiana, and the adjoining territory
on both sides of the Mississippi, as far as Cairo, as covered with
water. Also a great sea extending through Nebraska and the western part
of Dacotah, and taking a north-westerly course until it emptied into the
Pacific. In Europe, the great basin of Paris (excepting a zone of
chalk), the greater part of Spain and Italy, the whole of Belgium,
Holland, Prussia, Switzerland, Hungary, Wallachia, and northern Russia,
as one vast sheet of water. England and France were connected by a band
of rocks.
About the middle of the tertiary, a tropical climate and tropical fauna
and flora spread over the whole of Europe. Palms, cedars, laurels, and
cinnamon trees flourished in the valleys of Switzerland, and more than
thirty different species of oak adorned the forests of that time.
In Europe, in the eocene, there have been found thirty species of
crocodiles; many species of snakes, one twenty feet long; a dozen
species of birds; tapirs (_Palæothere_ and _Lophiodon_), two species of
hogs, some ruminants and rodents.
In the miocene, among _Pachyderms_ may be mentioned the mastodon,
elephant, dinothere (an elephantine animal), rhinoceros, hog, horse,
tapir, and hippopotamus; among _Carnivores_, the machairodus, hyena,
lion, and dog; among _Ruminants_, the camel, deer, and antelope. There
were monkeys, and many other animals.
In the pliocene, besides those enumerated, are found the bear, hare, and
other animals.
In the tertiary beds of America have been found mastodons, elephants,
rhinoceroses, deer, camels, foxes, wolves, horses, whales, and other
mammalia.
Owing to the great lapse of time it cannot be expected that many traces
of man will be discovered in this early period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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