PREHISTORIC MAN IN AMERICA. 95 



Even if early man and his progenitors sought shelter in caverns, Professor 

 Dawkins, the distinguished British archaeologist, shows that while there have 

 probably been caverns in all geological periods, they have all been obliterated by 

 " the rain, the alternation of heat and cold, the acids evolved from decaying 

 vegetation, and the breakers on the sea shore, " and this obliteration has been so 

 thoroughly accomplished that there are only two caverns known that can be said 

 to be as old as the middle pliocene. 



Without entering into any discussion regarding the submergence of the coast 

 line in many parts of the world, and its subsequent erosion, thus removing traces 

 of ancient i;eople who have sought the sea for food, we may accept the evidences 

 offered to show that paleolithic man came from the south, for he makes his ap- 

 pearance along the southern borders of the northern ice-sheet. 



It i^ a significant fact that, with the appearance of the glacial fields, the later 

 tertiary apes were driven out of Europe, never to return, whilst paleolithic man 

 came in, and was able to endure the very influences that caused the disappear- 

 ance of the apes. This shows how vast a change had taken place at that early 

 time between man and his anthropoid relatives. 



He came from the south, from those regions where the least exploration has 

 been carried on, and where the difficulties are generally greatest for such explora- 

 tions. It is also in the equatorial regions that we have the hypothetical Lemuria, 

 Atlantis, and other submerged areas, which were generally supposed to have been 

 lands teeming with life. 



" An argument for beheving that he lived in the earlier tertiaries maybe found 

 in the fact that his characters, as seen in the earliest remains, are yet promptly 

 recognized as human. It is true they depart somewhat from the characters which 

 distinguish the race to-day, nevertheless the race, with its wide variation, can 

 compass, without violence, the most aberrant form yet found. It is man that is 

 recognized, and not ape, and that man could have lived through such long ages 

 with so little change is an argument, that his progenitors must have lived long an- 

 terior to the earliest traces yet found. 



If we consider the minor subdivisions of man in time since the neolithic age, 

 we can trace some of his incursions. We can, as it were, see him coming from 

 some unknown quarter, and frequenting regions never before inhabited by him. 



{To be continued.') 



