Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1874-04-21
Sole \ T [ T [ G.
EARLY TRACES OF MEN.

When quarrymen uncovered slabs
of Connecticut sand stone, bearing I'M
pressioris exactly like bird tracks, ge-
olOgists reasonably inferred that at the
time the rock was forming and was a.
yet but wet sand, there existed gigan-
tic birds or bird-like animals, which
STROBE along the ancient sea shores
much as beach birds do along the
shores of to-day The fact that traces
of birds had never been found before in
strata so ancient, much less the popl,-
lar theory that birds were of la .er Gre
alton, did not invalidate the Inference;
one positive fact, as is well known,
Outvalues any amount of negative as
sertion, and the old theory had to give
way.
When workmen, digging canal near
Stockholm, came upon a buried hearth
with charcoal on it, exactly like those
which unciviliZed people now make
use of, the natural inference was that
some one of more than brute intelli-
gence had lived there before the over
lying earth was deposited. Had the
hearth been slightly buried say six feet
below the surface, there would have
been no question of its artificial origin;
it would have been accounted the work
of man as surely as if a human skele-
ton had been found lying beside it,
Should the inference be considered
less legitimate because there happened
to be sixty feet of earth above the
hearth? True, that accumulation of
erratic blocks and sand and sea shells
gave unmistakable evidence of great
geological changes since the hearth
10 rlnnial action CIlhn1nr-
gence of the land and it's subsequent
elevation-all involving long periods
of time but that told not so much
against the testimony of the hearth
as against the belief that man was OF
more recent creation.
Now that such witnesses have been
multiplied to an almost infinite num-
ber, forming a continuous chain from
the earliest historic times far back IN
to the tertiary period, the evidence is
overwhelming the alleged" antlqul-
ty of man, as it is styled by those who
have never Investigated the matter,
passes from the domain OF hypothesis
into the region of demonstrated fact
The vista of human antiquity opened
up by these surprising discoveries is
indeed vast, so vast that even tnose
who have most patiently followed them
and assisted in their development are
overwhelmed with the thought of it
No wonder, then. that those to whom
it comes as d sudden revelation shoalu
fatty refuse to admit its reaIlty. AS
Mr.. Evans remarks in the closing par
agraph of his magnificent work on the
ancient stone implements, weapons
and ornaments of Great Britain, 1T is
impossible not to sympathlze with
those who. from sheer inability to car
ry their vision so far back into the
dim past, and from unconsclousness OF
the cOgency of other (than the fossils
described in the work above mention
ed and distinct evidence as to the re-
moteness of the origin of the human
race, are unwilling to believe In so
vast ali antiquity for man as must OF
necessity be conceded by those who
have fully and fairly weighed
the facts which modern discoveries
have unrolled before their eyes" Yet
while we sympathiZe with the natural
incredibly of those who lack the basis
of intelligent Judgment. we need not
initiate their unreasoning assurance
in contradicting the deductions OF
sCieEce while refusing to examine eth
er the ground of their own convictions
or the evidence of the different convlc-
tons of others.
The geological proofs of the antiqui-
ty of man, to which Mr.. Evans al
ludes, are of threefold character:
1 The association of human bones
with the bones of extinct animals. un-
der conditions which prove them to be
of equal age.