282 WALKS AND TALKS. 



rhinoceros, an animal allied to the hippopotamus, an extinct 

 species of horse, and a species allied to the camel and resem- 

 bling the Meg-a-lo-me'-ryx of Leidy ; all these species, so far as 

 we know, are peculiar to the deposits under the lava." As to 

 the plant remains found in the same beds, Dr. Newberry re- 

 ports that they are not older than the Miocene, and most re- 

 semble species found in the later European Tertiaries. For 

 myself, I hardly think this evidence is fully conclusive on the 

 Pliocene age of the deep placer gravels with human relics. I 

 feel persuaded that the great lava eruption was connected 

 with the enormous load of ice which once covered the regions 

 farther north and east; and if so, they occurred probably 

 while the glacial epoch was at its meridian. Mr. Boyd Daw- 

 kins thinks the evidence of Pliocene man in California is "un- 

 satisfactory" because almost no species of Pliocene mammals 

 have survived to the present, and the strong presumption is 

 afforded that man is not an exception. 



But in any event, American man existed in the Glacial 

 Epoch not, of course, in the midst of a continental glacier ; 

 but in some favorable region which glaciation did not reach. 

 Much of the " far west" was suitable for human occupation 

 at the time. Great lakes existed in Oregon, in Utah, and 

 Nevada ; and they were populated by a molluscan fauna not 

 less exacting in its requirements than the types accompanying 

 man in the present epoch. In eastern America, also, some 

 human relics have been found which, as is thought, argue the 

 presence of man in the Glacial Epoch. Dr. C. C. Abbot has 

 described some stone implements in ancient gravel near 

 Trenton, New Jersey, and the announcement of Glacial man 

 has been proclaimed ; but I agree with Mr. H. C. Lewis, 

 that these gravels are post-glacial. Stratified gravels of the 

 Drift belong to the epoch of the Champlain floods. The de- 

 posits of the Glacial Epoch, with local exceptions, are un- 

 stratified, and in the nature of "till." The Trenton gravel 

 appears to be a river-drift deposited during the flooded stage 

 of the Delaware. 



Human implements in river-drift gravels are widely known 



