The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-02-13
JACKSON c. II, OHIO, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 1s, 1873

or unouestionable evidences of human
handiwork have been found in the de
posits of those early times, in connection
with the remains of supposed prehuman
animals, in England, Scandinavia, Belgl-
um, France, Spain, Italy, Australia and
South America, well as in our own
country; and the more carefully the
search has been conducted, the farther
back the history of man has been pushed
into the distant past Every inch of the
ground has been fought over, the firm
conviction of the early investigators that
man could not be so old a creature caus-
ing them to receive every discovery with
downright disfavor. Such an upturning
of all the recognized founda ations of his
tory seemed of necessity to involve some
hidden error. But it did not. The facts
are so numerous and ineligible that the
m ost skeptical enquirers have been con
vinced, and now not a few of them hold
nigh rank among the authorities of the
young science of archeeogeology. Among
these is the venerable Sir Charles Lyel
whose caution is not less remarkable
than his courage. After studying some
of the earlier discoveries of human fos-
sils he admitted their preglacial origin
and thought we might expect to find the
remains of man in the pliocene strata.
! Writing after the discovery of such plio-
| Gene remains, Sir John Lubbock set the
! time of the first beginning of the human
race as far back as the miocene, or mid
die tertiary period; while Alfred Wallace
carries the date still farther back, into
the eocene period this, however, on the
oretical grounds, since the traces of men
earlier than the pliocene period are few
and somewhat questionable In what is
said to be miocene strata near Pontlevoy,
France. NJ. Bourgeois has found numer-
Gus wrought fints in stratum containing
the remains of a long extinct animal al
| lied to the rhinoceros, and beneath bed
| which contains the mastodon, the dino
| therium and the rhinoceros. Similar ev-
| ldences of man s presence and skill have
been found in the miocene beds of Auril-
lac, with the remains of animals long
| since extinct; and at Pouance, another
observer, M. Delaunay, has discovered q
| bone of a herbivorous cetacean of the mi
ocene period, which bears the marks oil
cutting instruments, such as must have
been made when the bone was in a green
condition. Doubtless these faint fore
shadowings of mans presence in the mid
die tertiary will be strengthened by fu
ture discoveries. as the first evidence O.
his existence in the later tertiary ano
quantenary periods have been.
The time required for all the geologic
al changes which have taken place since
uldH u0IuOuSGFdOly cnG0r0o upon CHt
struggle for existence is simply incon
ceivable The glacial limit lately set tc
his history has been overpassed, and hi:
dominion extended perhaps farther be
yond it than it is back of the present
I'VE of the present generation" says Sil
Charles Lyell, when called upon to make
grants of thousands of centuries in order
to explain the events ofwhat is called the
modern period, shrink naturally at frs
from making what seems so lavish an ex
penditure of past time Yet, however
the immensity of such periods, the stern
est reason declares them to be necessary
unless we stand ready to deny the order
ly sequence of events. The same sort o
evidence which proves the existence o
man on earth six thousand years age
proves his presence here as many thous
and centuries