Novemeer 3, 1899. ] 
Torreya californica, Torreya nucifera, Torreya 
grandis preserve his memory as green as 
their own perpetual verdure.* 
Marcus BenJAMIN. 
U.S. NatIonaL Museum. 
(To be continued.) 
THE HISTORY OF THE BEGINNINGS OF THE 
SCIENCE OF PRE-HISTORIC ANTHRO- 
POLOGY. 
Il. 
Paleolithic Age in the United States. 
The existence of the paleolithic stage of 
culture in America has been doubted, and, 
indved, strenuously denied by some of our 
scientists who are well up in archeology and 
prehistorie anthropology. 
My somewhat extensive travels with long 
stops and continuous examinations of many 
of the localities in Europe occupied by 
paleolithic man, especially among the cav- 
erns of the Dordogne district ; my personal 
acquaintance with most of the collections 
of paleolithic implements made in these 
countries ; my association with the leading 
investigators and believers in paleolithic 
occupation, have fitted me in a degree to 
judge of the subject which it would be 
mock modesty on my part to deny; while 
my dozen years’ service in the prehistoric 
department of the U. S. National Museum, 
gives me an. acquaintance with the' A meri- 
can specimens by which I may compare the 
specimens from the two countries in a 
peculiar manner which I hope is not with- 
out its value. 
The original discovery of a paleolithic 
period was made in Europe. The determ- 
ining characteristics of that period have 
been decided only in Europe, and it must 
be principally by comparison with the evi- 
dence there that we are to determine the 
existence of a corresponding period in 
America. This evidence is furnished (in 
Hurope) largely by geology and by paleon- 
* Gray, op. cit., p. 276. 
SCIENCE. 
637 
tology. As has been described, discoveries 
of the remains of man, either physical or 
industrial (technologic), have been made 
in, and belong to, quaternary deposits, 
determined either by the geologic strata 
in which they were found, or the paleon- 
tologic objects with which they were as- 
sociated. This species of evidence is, to 
a considerable extent, lacking in America. 
The European conditions have been found 
to exist in but few localities; yet America 
is not entirely without instances. Dr. Koch 
found a mammoth skeleton in Missouri, 
associated with which were flint weapons 
of human manufacture. It and the weap- 
ous are now displayed in the Berlin Mu- 
seum. Dr. Dickeson found at Natchez, 
Mississippi, the buried skeletal remains of 
a megalonyx superposed on a portion of a 
human skeleton. The human skeleton from 
Guadeloupe, now at Paris, was encased in 
coquina, a rock made of shells belonging to 
the quaternary, though not exclusively so. 
The Iron Man of Sarasota Bay, Florida, 
found by Judge John G. Webb, was com- 
pletely fossilized and changed to limonite. 
A fossilized human caleaneum was found 
by Col. Joseph Wilcox, of Philadelphia, in 
the same neighborhood with a quaternary 
shell forming part of the mass. Three 
similar instances were found in the same 
country in separated localities, showing 
them to have been different individuals ; 
some of these have been encased in bog iron 
ore, others in indurated sandstone appar- 
ently as solid as though formed at the bot- 
tom of the ocean. The Nampa Image has 
been cited as evidence of high antiquity of 
man in America, and while its genuineness 
has been questioned, the attacks upon it 
are far from being successful. 
The Calaveras skull has been the subject 
of much hilarious scientific criticism bord- 
ering on contempt. The facts of its discov- 
ery should be subjected to painstaking and 
detailed investigation before the results of 
