Cottonwood report. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1893-1901, 1894-06-01


Fs'ThU Begianing of Man and the Age of
the Race" is the subject of an article in
The Forum by DIR. Daniel G.. Brinton,
one of the foremost anthropologists of
ihe time. The very earliest deposit in
which there may be said to be general
agreement that mans remains are found
is that called the Drift, series of gravel
beds in the valley of the Thames in Eng
land, Somme in France and the Manza-
mares in Spain, and elsewhere in western
Europe. In these beds his stone tools and
weapons are found lying in undisturbed
relations with bones of animals long since
extinct, and which under the present con-
ditions OF the climate could not exist in
that locality, these animals belonging to
tropical or subtropical fauna. From
this one is led to believe that man lived
there at an early date when the climate
was much warmer than now, and that
he had lived there for long time, for
thousands of his implements have been
found in various strata and scattered
over wide area.
After this warm period period of ex-
treme cold descended from the north
| over central and western Europe. Huge
| glaciers covered Scotland, Scandinavia
| and Switzerland, and the forests of
| France were the haunts of arctic qua
drupeds and birds, of musk OK, reindeer
and the white fox. Man, however,
weathered this cold period and contin-
ued to roam the woods and fish the
streams, transferring his habitations to
natural caves, where evidence of his
hunts and his battles are still to be
found. This period of cold is what is
called the ''glacial period" and by some
of our most learned biologists the length
of this ''icy age" has been placed from
q, 900 to 5000 years.
| Adding this to the former calculation,
and allowinga reasonable time for prime
val man to develop and spread over the
area in which he lived, we have as the
approximate time since man has ap-
peared in Europe-where, up to date, we
have found the earliest trace of his ex-
istence-about $4,000 years. This Mr.
Brinton regards as the minimum allow
ance for him, Some writers of eminence
have required 100000 years to explain
all these changes in climate, in organic
life and in geological deposition, but Mr.,
Brintop points out that the tendency of
late years has been toward reduction
OF these figures, especially by field geol-
ogists, who seem to be more impressed
with the rapidity of natural actions than
heretofore.
Coming next to the consideration of
the origin of man, DR.. Rrinton declares
that there is no trace anywhere of the
missing link, no evidence that man de-
veloped out of some lower animal by
long series Of slow changes" Nor does
he accept the doctrine of specific crea.
ton as scientific explanation. There
is third possible theory of the origin of
man which DR.. Brinton holds is as good
as another-namely, that called "evolu.
ton per saltum," or with a jump
at is that process, whatever it may
be, which produces sports in plants and
'cranks' and 'geniuses' in respectable
families No doctrine of 'heredity' or
'atavism' or 'reversion' can explain these
prodigies or monsters, as they happen to
be. A family of we know not which of
the higher mammals, perhaps the great
tree ape which then lived in the warm
regions of central France, may have pro-
duced few sports, widely different
physically and mentally from their par
ents, and these sports were the ances-
tors of mankind. This is theory which
asks for its acceptance no blind faith in
the dogmatic assertions either of science
or religious tradition"
As to where man first appeared DR..
Brinton says: I'm fact, we are limited by
q series of exclusions to the southern
slope of that great mountain chain which
begins in western Europe and Africa
with the Atlas mountains, the Cantabri-
an Alps and the Pyrenees and continues
to the Himalayas and their eastern ex-
tensions in farther India Somewhere
along this line in southern Asia or in
southern Europe or in northern Africa |
we may confidently say man first opened |
his eyes upon the world about him. Up |
to the present time his earliest vestiges |
have been exhumed in the extreme west |
of this region, but that may be because
there search has been more diligently |
made. but the fact remains that, speak |
ing from present knowledge, we know Of
man nowhere earlier than in England,
France and the Iberian peninsula. RE.
view of Reviews.