A GRASP OF GEOLOGIC TIME. 169 



north his ethnic characteristics have been perpetuated 

 from age to age; and while we wonder over the mystery 

 of the apparition and migrations of our species, the rep- 

 resentative of prehistoric man still gazes as of old upon 

 the retiring glacier which now hovers over the Arctic 

 borders of Finland. Farther south, a more enlightened 

 type of the species has absorbed the lingering communi- 

 ties of prehistoric men, and is watching the disappearance 

 of the last vestiges of the great continental glacier van- 

 ishing up the slopes of the Alps. The history of man 

 has not gone back to the reign of ice. The reign of ice, 

 like the mammoth, has come down to the age of man. 

 American man has been the witness of similar transfor- 

 mations. He dwelt on the Pacific coast before the epoch 

 of general glaciation. He saw his hunting-grounds buried 

 beneath floods of lava which spread themselves over ter- 

 ritory vast enough for half-a-dozen states. His remains 

 lie inclosed in a sarcophagus of lava. He survived the 

 molten inundation which enkindled to luminosity the sur- 

 face of a planet. He has seen the storms of heaven at 

 work on the erosion of these lava-sheets, and watched the 

 growth of canons which are a thousand feet deep. All 

 these events, vast and destructive and transforming as 

 they are, have been grasped by the observation of a race 

 which still lives and holds intercourse with ourselves.* 



*The evidences of the Pliocene age of the human remains of California 

 have been gathered together by Professor J D. Whitney in his work on The 

 Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California, 1879. Flint implements 

 occur also in the auriferous gravels where not covered with lava. These gravels 

 contain plants pronounced Pliocene (or partly Miocene) by so good an author- 

 ity as Lesquereux. Some of the animal species found in the same association 

 are also Pliocene types. The conclusions of Whitney, Winslow, and other dis- 

 coverers, are undisputed by J. D. Dana. Manual of Geology, 3d. ed.. pp. 577-8, 

 and Joseph Leconte, Elements of Geology, p. 567. But Mr. James C. Sonthall 

 says, " We cannot accept such monstrous conclusions, even if advanced by our 



