115 



general review of the mass of published matter exhibits the 

 fact that the uses to which the material has been put have 

 not always been wise. 



In the monuments of antiquity found throughout North 

 America, in camp and village sites, graves, mounds, ruins, 

 and scattered works of art, the origin and development of 

 art in savage and barbaric life may be satisfactorily studied. 

 Incidentally, too, hints of customs may be discovered, but 

 outside of this, the discoveries made have often been ille- 

 gitimately used, especially for the purpose of connecting the 

 tribes of North America with peoples or so-called races of 

 antiquity in other portions of the world. A brief review 

 of some conclusions that must be accepted in the present 

 status of the science will exhibit the futility of these at- 

 tempts. 



It is now an established fact, that man was widely scat- 

 tered over the earth at least as early as the beginning of the 

 quaternary period, and, perhaps, in pliocene time. 



If we accept the conclusion that there is but one species 

 of man, as species are now defined by biologists, we may 

 reasonably conclude that the species has been dispersed from 

 some common centre, as the ability to successfully carry on 

 the battle of life in all climes belongs only to a highly 

 developed being ; but this original home has not yet been 

 ascertained with certainty, and when discovered, lines of 

 migration therefrom cannot be mapped until the changes in 

 the physical geography of the earth from that early time to 

 the present have been discovered, and these must be settled 

 upon purely geologic and paleontologic evidence. The 

 migrations of mankind from that original home cannot be 

 intelligently discussed until that home has been discovered, 

 and further, until the geology of the globe is so thoroughly 

 known that the different phases of its geography can be 

 presented. 



The dispersion of man must have been anterior to the 

 development of any but the rudest arts. Since that time 

 the surface of the earth has undergone many and important 



