ia and America, wandered in the forests and on
the banks of the rivers. Herds of horse-like animals, about the size of
Shetland ponies, fed on the meadows.<24> Animals that chew the cud were
present, or at least had near representatives.<25>

Among the flesh-eating animals were creatures resembling foxes,
wolverines, and hyenas.<26> This shows what a great advance had been
made. But, besides all these, we are here presented with representatives
of the order of Quadrumana, or four-handed animals. Several genera of
lemurs are found in both America and Europe.

Now the Quadrumana are the order below man. Therefore it seems that in
the Eocene period, all the forms of life _below_ man are represented.
The time seems to be at hand when we can look, with some confidence,
for traces of the presence of man himself. We must therefore be more
cautious in our investigations.

The epoch following on after the Eocene is designated as the Miocene.
We must remember that, though recent in a geological sense, yet it is
immensely remote when measured by the standard of years. We must inquire
into all the surroundings of this far away time. The geographical
features must have been widely different from the present.

In the first place, the elevation of land to the north must have
been sufficient to have connected the land areas of the Northern
Hemisphere--North America, with Asia<27> and Greenland; and this latter
country must have been united with Iceland, and, through the British
Islands, with Europe. But, to compensate for this land mass to the
north, large portions of Central and Southern Europe were beneath the
waves.<28> The proof of this extended mass of land is to be found in the
wide distribution of similar animals and plants in the Miocene time.
All the chief botanists are agreed that the north Polar region was
the center from which plants peculiar to the Eocene and Miocene epochs
spread into both Europe and America.<29> We may mention that the famous
big trees of California are simply remnants of a wide-spread growth of
these trees in Miocene times. They can be found in a fossil state at
various places in British America, in Greenland, and in Europe. They are
supposed to have originated somewhere in the north, and spread by these
land connections we have mentioned into both Europe and America. But
this is not the only tree that grew in the Miocene forests of both
continents. The magnolia, tulip-tree, and swamp cypress are oth