IKTER-GLACIAL AMERICAN MAN. 569 



of South America were communicated to the scientilfic world, which 

 seemed to point to like conclusions in reference to the contem- 

 poraneous existence of man and the extinct mammalia of the cave 

 deposits; and which even included what have been regarded by some 

 as facts of special significance in reference to the hypothesis of evolu- 

 tion in its relation to the origin of man. A cabinet of the British 

 Museum is filled with fossil bones of mammalia, obtained by Dr. Lund 

 and M. Claussen from limestone caverns in the Brazils closely resem- 

 bling the ossiferous caves of Europe. The relics were imbedded in a 

 reddish-coloured loam, covered over with a thick stalagmitic flooring ; 

 and along with them lay not only numerous bones of genera still 

 inhabiting the American continent, but also of extinct genera of. 

 fossil monkeys : the significance of which in relation to the hypothesis 

 of transition through intermediate forms, from the lower primates to 

 man, has since received ample recognition. 



The comprehensiv'e aspect which the prehistoric archaeology of 

 Europe is now assuming, with its pahieolithic and neolithic sub 

 divisions, its post-glacial and possible inter-glacial and pre-glacial 

 periods, has not been overlooked in America. Its relations to- the 

 geological aspects of the great drift formation of the northei'n 

 continent could not, indeed, escape observation, and has naturally 

 stimulated both the geologists and the archaeologists of the l^ew 

 World to aim at the recovery of corresponding evidence of its 

 palaeolithic era. Hitherto, however, the assumed proofs of any such 

 palseotechnic American ai't, have been isolated and indecisive. A 

 flint knife has been described, recovered from a depth of upwards 

 of fourteen feet among the rolled gravel and gold-bearing quartz of 

 the Grinell Leads, in Kansas Territoiy. Specimens of flint imple- 

 ments from the auriferous gravel of California were produced at the 

 Paris Exposition of 1855. According to the geological survey of 

 Illinois, for 1866, stone axes and flint spear-heads were obtained 

 from a bed of local drift near Alton, underlying the loess, and at 

 the same depth as bones of the mastodon and other fossil mammals. 

 Other more or less trustworthy reports of discoveries of a like 

 characteiz have been published from time to time. Mr. Charles 

 C. Jones, for example, in his Antiquities of the Southern Indians, 

 notes the discovery of seeming palaeolithic implements in the JSTacoo- 

 chee Yalley, in the State of Georgia. There the river Chattahoochee 

 flows through a rich auriferous region; and, in the search for gold. 



