2IO EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



&quot;Catholic Encyclopedia&quot; 14 J. A. Hewlett refers 

 to Guibert s views upon this subject of the age 

 of man: &quot;Haeckel names more than 100,000 

 years; Burmeister supposed that Egypt was peo 

 pled more than 72,000 years ago; Draper attrib 

 utes to European man more than 250,000 years; 

 according to M. Joly, certain geologists accord 

 to the human race 100,000 centuries; and G. de 

 Mortillet shows that man s existence reaches to 

 about 240,000 years.&quot; Yet after carefully study 

 ing all these views and the reasons or absence of 

 reasons for such statements, Guibert himself 

 comes to the conclusion that there is no evidence 

 whatsoever that can compel us to go back farther 

 than 10,000 years for the beginning of man. 15 



Among all the authorities that might here be 

 cited there is perhaps none that deserves to be 

 taken more seriously, where there is question of 

 the age of man, than G. F. Wright, who devoted 

 the greater part of half a century to the most 

 careful and intelligent study of glacial conditions. 

 It is by these in particular that the age of man 

 can be most accurately determined. 



Particular attention was given by him to what 

 is perhaps the most perfect of all geological chro 

 nometers, the post-glacial Niagara gorge, whose 

 geological conditions are most uniform, and whose 

 erosions, therefore, enable us to draw the best- 



14 See Chronology (Biblical), section &quot;Creation of Man.&quot; 



15 Guibert, &quot;In the Beginning,&quot; p. 28. 



