240 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



was considerably later than in the Old World ; but even 

 in America the race has probably looked upon the later 

 representatives of the mammoth and mastodon tribes. I 

 have myself exhumed mastodon bones from a bed of peat 

 not more than three feet deep, and which I believe could 

 easily have been accumulated during the last five hundred 

 years. The traditions of the American Indians in refer 

 ence to the acquaintance of their ancestors with animals 

 which left these gigantic remains are probably founded 

 upon fact. 



But this is a subject to which I shall return. I am 

 tempted still to offer a few farther reflections upon the 

 physical events marking the dawn of the Human Epoch. 



