VASSAR BROTHERS INSTITUTE. 87 
JANUARY 4, 1887—THIRTY-FIFTH REGULAR MEETING. 
William G. Stevenson, M.D., president in the chair. 
Twenty members and one hundred seventy-five guests 
present. 
James M. Taylor, D.D., and Mr. James Winne were 
elected active members. 
James M. DeGarmo, Ph. D., gave an address en- 
titled ‘‘ Pre-Historic Man in America,’’? by whichit was 
sought to establish by varied forms of evidence the fact 
of man’s existence on this continent long before there 
were any historic accounts. 
The usual term, ‘‘paleolithic’’ man, was avoided, 
and the issue kept clear on the pre-historic basis. The 
existence of skeletons or parts of skeletons under strata 
not made in historic times was taken as substantial 
proof. Then the refuse heaps along the Atlantic coast, 
of vast piles of shells, gathered long before the Indians 
lived here, was still further adduced as evidence. And 
then the mounds and fortifications of the mound build- 
ers, with their pipes and pottery, their copper orna- 
ments and discs representing the sun and moon, the 
proofs of a civilization in copper mining and copper 
working, with something of a knowledge of astronomy 
from the telescope tube of obsidian, were all considered 
as incontestable witnesses of a mighty population in- 
habiting this country, in times long before any authen- 
tic records would indicate. 
The singular absence of domesticated animals was 
noted, as was the building of the mounds before the last 
fluvial subsidence—the last river terrace never being oc- 
cupied. The similarity of the work of the mound 
builders, with some Mexican remains and some in Cen- 
tral America and Peru, would seem to indicate a com- 
munity of origin, or a close race affinity. All these facts 
were treated as the real remains of a people or of many 
peoples, who have left them to tell the story of their ex- 
istence to other generations. 
