Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/37

] European forms on the new continent. The contrast between the Secondary and the Tertiary faunas is enormous and proportionate to the geographical change, but it is not so strongly marked in the floras, which have changed more slowly.

The third or Tertiary period is that which more immediately concerns us. In it each life-group is so closely linked to that which went before and followed after, that there is no break of sufficient importance to be used for a starting-point in our special inquiry into the ancient history of man. We shall therefore be compelled to treat in outline the principal changes which took place in this country from the beginning of the Tertiary period down to the time when man first appeared upon the stage, and to see how they are related to the varying conditions of life on the continent.

The Tertiary period in Europe may be divided into six well-defined stages, as I have pointed out in my work on Cave-hunting.