The Northern Pacific farmer., 1883-10-25
A PREHISTORIC RACE.

Valleys ofthe Delaware, the Thames
and the Seine-scenes that May
Have Been Witnessed Where Lon.
don and Paris Now stand.
From the North American Review.
Who were the earliest inhabitants of
America, and when did they live? are
questions which have generally been ap-
preached solely from the point of view
offered by discoveries in the United
6taes, and, until within the last three
or four years, have been discussed only
,on the slender basis of the Caaveras
skull and the implements found in gold
mining in California. In the following
essay l propose to deal with them as
portions of one great problem common
to the Old and new Worlds, and to
show that the first traces of man, as yet
discovered, prove him to have lived in
the same low stage of culture on both
hands ofthe geological clock pointed to
the same hour over the greater part of
the world. The story Of early man in
America is a part OF the greatest story o
the first appearance of u an on the earth,
so far as he has yet been revealed by
modern discovery
4 u y
The change in life has been so regular,
definite, and orderly in the geological
rocks over the whole world into prima-
ry, secondary, and tertiary groups. In
the last Of these the higher types of
mammalia become more and more spe-
cialized as We draw nearer to the from
tiers of history; and their pedigrees,
when traced from one period to anoth-
er, assume the shape of genealogical
trees. such as that which Prof. Marsh
has discovered for the horse. The liv-
ing orders first appear in the Eoene,
the living gehera i'll the Miocene a
few living species in the Pliocene, while
nearly ali the living species come in the
Pleitocene division: Again, in the in
terval dividing the last from the historic
period. the DO nestle animals appear and
tie cultivated fruits, and this-the Pre-
historic-gradually passes into the peri
cd embraced by the written records. \
# The most highly specialized form
in the animal kingdom cannot be looked
for until the lower animals by which he
is now surrounded made their appear
ance. We cannot imagine him to have
been living in the Eocene age, when
animal life was not sufficiently
differentiated to present US with
living genera of placental mammals.
Nor is there any probability of his hav-
ing appeared on the earth in the
Miocene, because of tue absence of pla-
GENITAL mammals belonging to living spe-
cies- 1t is most unlikely that man should
appear in a fauna III which there was no
other living mammal. He belongs to
more advanced stage OF evolution than
that presented Ivy the mid-Miocene Of
Thenay in viii ii flint splinters fashioned
by man are said to have occurred. Up
to this time the evolution of the animal
kingdom had advanced no further than
Simiadn in the Girc,ti, IN of man, and
the apes then haunting the forests of
Italy, France, and Germany, were the
most highly organized types. We<may
also look at the question from another
point of view. If Il man were upon the
earth in the Miocene age, it is incredi-
bic that he should not have become
something else while those changes
were going on in the conditions of life
by which all the Miocene land mamma
, liz have been SO profoundly affected
that they have. either assumed new
forms or been exterminated. It is i'm
possible TO believe that man should have
been an exception to the law of change.
Nor in the succeeding Pliocene age can
the earth. > ''The fossil man of
Denise" is of uncertain aye, and other
alleged cases Of Plocene man in Europe
have now been given up.
The question has. however, been re-
vived in the United States by Prof.
Whitney in his work on the "Auriferous
Gravels Of California;" and the existence
of man in California in the Pliocene age
has been accepted by such high author
tiles as Marsh. LIE Conte and others. It
becomes, therefore, necessary for us to
see how the facts VIII stand the test of
criticism. In the first place, it is as
sumed that the auriterous gravels in the
Serras. with traces of man, which are in
places 800 feet thick and sometimes COW
cred with ancient lava streams, are Of
fliocene age. They are however, proved
by their fossils, identified by DR.. Leidy
to have been deposited by the streams
from the Miocene Elotherium) age
down to the present time. Among the
animals we may note the skull OF q mus
tang, identical with that of Mexico and
California, which could not have been bu
ried in the gravels of Sierra county be-
fore the time of the Spanish conquest,
when the living race of horses was intro
human remains in the auriferous gravels
does not prove that man was an inhabi-
tant of Plocene America, even If it be
allowed that they are of the same age
as the strata in which they live. There
is however, no evidence of this in any
one instan e. The objects themselves
point to directly opposite conclusion.
The famous Calaveras skull, according
to Prof Wyman, is related to the Indi-
an type, with doubtful affinity with
the Esquimaux. 1t was obtained from
shaft sunk through three alternate
layers Of gravel and basalt at depth
the su rface, was associated with the re-
mains of other individuals, and had
been buried along with shell beads of
the kind usually met with in Indian
interments. Had these remains been
found near the surface they would have
been undoubtedly classified with the
ordinary traces of Indians, ami their oc-
currence at SO great a depth is the sole
cause of their being the object of special
interest.
Nor have we to go far to account for
their presence at great depths. 1t is
very strange that Prof. Whitney should
have ignored the fact that mining oper-
ations have been carried on IN those
very districts long before the time of
''the fortes." "In lS49," writes School
craft ('Archnology," vol. j. p. lo5), "the
gold diggers at one Of the mountain dig
gings called Murphy's we're surprised in
examining high, barren district of
mour,ain, to find all old site of a mine,
with a shalt 2lo feet deep, at the bottom
of which were human skeleton, an al
tar and other remains OF an ancient
pcople-probably Indians. In other
ancient mines in the western states, as
DR.. Southsll has recently pointed out,
human skeletons have been met with,
which prove that gold mining was ex-
tensively carried on long before the dis
Covery OF gold in tn. present century.
We come now in our inquiry to the
succeeding period when the higher
mammalia. now contemporary with
man, appeared in force on the earth,
and man himself may. be reasonably
looked for. y The climate of Europe
at this time differed considerably from
that of the present day. To allow of
the northern animals penetrating as far
south as the Alps and Pyrenees, the
temperature in middle Europe must
have been low, while it must have been
high for ani1 ais Of warm habits, such
rs the hippopotamus, to have lived as
far north as the British Isles. The re-
mains of both these groups are so inter-
mingled in the river deposits and caves
throughout middle EurOpe-hippopota
mus with reindeer and the like-that it
ia ImpOsSible to REFER them TO periods