990 
“x * * What the recent discoveries have 
shown is, that during, and subsequent to, the 
glacial period, and since the advent of man, 
there has existed such an instability of the 
earth’s crust that the present cannot be made a 
measure of the past. Man has certainly wit- 
nessed catastrophes by flood which are quite 
analogous to the one described in Genesis. But 
it is important, in conclusion, to obtain correct 
ideas of what we are required by the narrative 
© lalla, = wo 
“1. The biblical account of the flood does not 
imply, as many seem to assume, that the waters 
of the earth increased to such a degree that it 
swelled the circumference of the globe to the 
extent of the tops of the highest mountains. 
ms ar oe (Ja), IBS.) 
‘©9, Nor is it necessary, except for the pur- 
pose of effecting the destruction of the human 
race, to suppose that the flood was, in the strict 
sense of the word, universal. We may well be- 
lieve that the end in view, namely, the destruc- 
tion of the human race, with the exception of 
Noah and his family, was accomplished without 
the destruction of all forms of animal life. whose 
existence was unconnected with the general 
moral reasons for the flood. * * * The objects 
of the flood were all satisfied if the destruction 
of the human race was fully accomplished, so 
that history could make a new start with a se- 
lected family. * * * (p. 188.) 
“Some time during the prevalence of glacial 
ice over Northern America and Northwestern 
Europe, man came into existence in Central 
Asia, where the climate was still congenial. 
From this point he spread as far west as the At- 
lantic seaboard in Europe, and eastward to the 
Pacific Coast, whence he succeeded in reaching, 
by way of the Bering Sea and Alaska, the west- 
ern coast of North America, and thence migrated 
to the Atlantic Coast, where his remains are 
found in the glacial gravels of Trenton, New 
Jersey. But the extreme and rapid changes 
incident to the closing stages of the glacial 
period naturally, and very likely, exterminated 
man in company with many of the animals 
accompanying him both in America and in 
Europe. The destruction of many of the 
species of animals accompanying man at the 
close of the glacial period is a well known 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Von. XIII. No. 338. 
fact. It also seems probable, from scientific 
evidence, that man shared largely in the de- 
struction. There is everywhere a sharp line of 
distinction between Palzeolithic and Neolithic 
man, 7. e., between the men who were limited 
to the use of flaked or rough stone implements 
and those who used smoothed stone imple- 
ments. It is Paleolithic implements only 
which are found in the glacial gravels of Amer- 
ica and Northwestern Europe, and beneath 
the loess at Kief and at three or four other 
localities in Southern Russia. The Palzeolithic 
man of science may well be the antedeluvian 
man of Genesis’’ (p. 139). 
From this it appears, a little darkly and 
vaguely, that the publicare to understand from 
these ‘recent’ and ‘remarkable discoveries’ 
that Paleolithic man, scattered over Asia, 
Europe and America (and Africa?), was de- 
stroyed by the flood, where there was a flood, 
and by ‘the extreme and rapid changes inci- 
dent to the closing stages of the glacial period,’ 
and that this gave rise to the ‘sharp line of 
distinction between Paleolithic and Neolithic 
man,’ and hence, by implication, that Neolithic 
man was the descendant of Noah and that the 
line of cultural evolution was from ark-build- 
ing to ‘smoothed stone implements.’ 
One is led to wonder how far respect for the 
Scriptures is fostered by ‘remarkable dis- 
coveries’ of this sort and by the much- 
trumpeted stage-play that preceded and accom- 
panied them. * * * 
THE MONGOOSE IN JAMAICA. 
Iv seems to be almost impossible for writers 
of text-books to give a correct account of the 
mongoose in the island of Jamaica, and its effect 
upon the native fauna. In Nature, February 7, 
1901, I took occasion to point out a peculiar 
error in the account of the animal in an excel- 
lent text-book of zoology ; to-day I open Mr. 
J. W. Redway’s Elementary Physical Geography 
(1900) and read that the mongoose ‘did not 
lessen the number of cane-rats,’ but ‘exter- 
minated one or two species of ground-bird.’ 
As in the former note just mentioned, I must 
beg those who wish to discuss this subject to 
read Dr. J. E. Duerden’s article in Journal of 
the Institute of Jamaica, July, 1896, p. 288. 
