But the caves of the Vézère have furnished examples not only of skulls, but of complete skeletons of an ancient race of cave-dwellers, whether that of the ingenious draughtsmen and reindeer hunters or not; and had those, or the underlying debris, yielded traces of the Eskimo type of head, there would then be good reason for attaching an exceptional value to any evidence of correspondence in arts and habits. But the cerebral capacity of this Cro-Magnon race amply accords with the artistic skill, and the sense of beauty and grace of natural form, ascribed to the ancient draughtsmen; and their well-developed skulls and large bones present the most striking contrast to the stunted Eskimo. The strongly marked physiognomy of the former bears no resemblance to the debased Mongolian type of the latter. No doubt it may be argued with sufficient plausibility that in the slow retreat of the palæolithic race, whether eastward by the river-valleys of Europe, and across the steppes of Asia, to Behring Strait; or over submerging continents, since engulfed in the ocean; and in the vast æons of their retreat to their latest home in another hemisphere, on the verge of the pole, any amount of change may have modified the physical characteristics of the race. But if so, the evidence of their pedigree is no longer producible. The Eskimo may be related by descent to the men of the French Reindeer period, as we ourselves may be descendants of palæolithic man; but, as Professor Geikie has justly remarked: “When anthropologists produce from some of the caves occupied by the reindeer hunters a cranium resembling that of the living Eskimo, it will be time enough to admit that the latter has descended from the former. But, unfortunately for the view here referred to, none of the skulls hitherto found affords it any support.”[46] In truth, the plausible fancy that the discoveries of the last twenty-five years have tended to confirm the identification of the cave-men with the Eskimo, only requires the full appreciation of all that it involves, in order that it shall take its place with that other identification with the red man of the present day of “Dr. Dowler’s sub-cypress Indian who dwelt on the site of New Orleans 57,000 years ago.”