526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



For instance, the reality and authenticity of the " human re- 

 mains and works found in the Danish shell mounds and peat 

 mosses, in the lake dwellings, in the coral reefs of Florida, in the 

 cromlechs, barrows, and kistvaens, and in the rock shelters," were 

 at first disputed, and when fully established by repeated discov- 

 eries it was then claimed that they all fell within the historic 

 period. This contention was, however, quickly overshadowed 

 and swept away by the more recent and numerous discoveries of 

 stone implements, carvings, and human remains found in Eng- 

 land, France, Belgium, Sicily, and America. 



" Many of these discoveries were made in the valley of the 

 Somme, the caves of the Dordogne, the valley of the Ouse, the 

 basin of the Seine, the valley of the Thames ; in the clay of the 

 Hoxne, in the gravel of Icklingham, in the caves of Engis, Engi- 

 houl, and Neanderthal ; in the cavern of Wells, in the caves of 

 Gower in Glamorganshire, in the Grotto di Maccaquone in 

 Sicily"; in the aqua-glacial deposits of the Delaware, of south- 

 ern Ohio, of Mississippi, in Minnesota, and also in the old river 

 bed under Table Mountain in California, and in many other 

 localities, carrying back, in some instances, the age of man as a 

 human being probably to the first or great Glacial period, and 

 certainly to the beginning of the Quaternary, " for many of these 

 remains are found intermingled with the bones of that large class 

 of extinct animals which passed away with the telluric conditions 

 to which these animals were organically related." 



Now, since the almost immeasurable antiquity of man, as such, 

 has been thus shown and placed beyond reasonable doubt, a new 

 and popular objection has come to the front which brings us face 

 to face with the subject in hand. 



It is claimed by an immense number of people who- are but 

 slightly acquainted with the subject in its broadest significance, 

 that the cranial capacity of these early men is found to be nearly 

 equal to that of modern savages ; that the cranial capacity of 

 the modern savage is nearly equal to that of the average routine 

 laborer among the civilized of to-day ; and that these facts are in- 

 consistent with the alleged progressive and developing character 

 of man structurally and organically. And it is also urged that 

 these discoveries really show affirmatively that man, as a human 

 being, has always been mentally, structurally, and organically 

 just what he is now, at least as far back as we have been able, 

 with all our research, to trace him. 



Now, these objections merged in one are, as- we have stated, 

 based upon an alleged comparative uniformity, or nearly equal 

 cranial capacity, at present and during all the past ages, when- 

 ever and wherever man has been revealed. 



This objection is what it appears to be, a random shot, or a 



