As stated in the last
chapter, the river drift and bone caves in Great Britain,
France, and other parts of the world, revealed a progression,
even in the various divisions of the earliest Stone period; for,
beginning at the very lowest strata of these remains, on the
floors of the caverns, associated mainly with the bones of
extinct animals, such as the cave bear, the hairy elephant, and
the like, were the rudest implements then, in strata above
these, sealed in the stalagmite of the cavern floors, lying with
the bones of animals extinct but more recent, stone implements
were found, still rude, but, as a rule, of an improved type;
and, finally, in a still higher stratum, associated with bones
of animals like the reindeer and bison, which, though not
extinct, have departed to other climates, were rude stone
implements, on the whole of a still better workmanship. Such was
the foreshadowing, even at that early rude Stone period, of the
proofs that the tendency of man has been from his earliest epoch
and in all parts of the world, as a rule, upward.
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