In a Sea-side Forest. 189 



primitive man threaded the mazes of the primeval 

 forest. Dr. Lockwood has told us of masses of 

 peat <md vegetable growth cast ashore during 

 storms, and of a mastodon tooth that had long 

 been buried in a swamp, and yet came from the 

 bottom of the sea, waves breaking now where 

 but a few centuries ago a forest had withstood the 

 tempest's fury. Was man here then ? How con- 

 stantly this question comes to mind when we re- 

 call the past ! One cannot reasonably doubt it, 

 and it never would have been a debatable matter 

 had not ignorance declared man's recent creation, 

 and that our continent's quota of humanity had to 

 force the ice-barriers of Siberia and Behring's 

 Strait, and so finally reach the Atlantic coast 

 of America. Happily, such nonsense is forever 

 downed. 



While, the island over, I found not even an 

 arrow-head, yet other traces of early man were not 

 wanting ; traces contemporaneous with the buried 

 swamps at sea and hidden forests on the main- 

 land. I refer to submerged shell-heaps. These 

 are now a feature of the marshes, and would be 

 puzzles, indeed, were it not that they rest upon 



