Antiquity of Man in America compared with Europe 133 



near the close of the Tertiary era, or perhaps because of both, 

 the Glacial period came on, inaugurating great physical 

 changes which were world-wide, at last separating the land, 

 as already stated, into continents, and restricting the animals 

 to definite areas. 



As there have been found in America no remains of man 

 which can be compared with Pithecanthropus, we may dis- 

 miss further consideration of him and inquire whether any- 

 thing has been found which may be compared with his suc- 

 cessor, Paleolithic or Neanderthal man. 



It is probable that we owe to Sir Charles Lyell, the emi- 

 nent English geologist, the earliest mention of human remains 

 that may be referred to this race. In 1846 he was on an ex- 

 tended visit to America, and he described the occurrence of a 

 pelvic bone of man in a collection found at the base of a ravine 

 near Natchez, in the state of Mississippi. This bone was asso- 

 ciated with the bones of Mastodon, Megalonyx, Equus, Bos, 

 and others. They were traced to "a clayey stratum," lying 

 below the loess of the locality, which he considered Tertiary, 

 but which is in the stratigraphic position of a layer of gravel 

 and stratified sand which at Vicksburg he considered to be 

 of the nature of glacial drift, since named Orange sand. He 

 at first rejected the idea that man and the mastodon could have 

 been co-temporary in the Mississippi valley, but that view he 

 modified later when evidence of their contemporaneity had 

 been increased greatly. The geological horizon in which these 

 were found is just below the loess, but it is not established 

 whether it is Pliocene or Pleistocene. In the light of later 

 discoveries, however, it seems to be safe to assume that this 

 bone was of the earliest of human remains found in the valley 

 of the Mississippi and that it was parallel, in all essential 

 respects, with Paleolithic man, or with the Equus beds. 



The idea which was accepted at first by Lyell, that this 

 bone had been precipitated into the ravine from some Indian 

 burial at the surface, is ruled out by the following considera- 

 tions : 



1. It had the dark color and the same state of preserva- 

 tion as the bones with which it was associated. 



