SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. ii 



lations to the groups and divisions of mankind required a dif- 

 ferent term for its definition, and the late Sir Daniel Wilson, a 

 Scottish-Canadian archaeologist and former President of the 

 Toronto University, coined the word Pre-Historic, using it in 

 the title to his "Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scot- 

 land," published in 1851. 



This term includes the science of the races of men, their char- 

 acter, history, customs, institutions and language, as derived 

 from sources other than oral or written evidence, and includes 

 that part of Ethnology which relates to the unwritten history 

 of the various races, nations and tribes derived from their 

 relics. 



Much has been written, and in all probability much more 

 Avill be written on the subject of man's origin, and yet but little 

 is known as to How, When or Where man first appeared on the 

 earth. 



The Book of Nature, which has thrown so much light on the 

 origin, evolution and age of the lower orders of animals, gives 

 comparatively little evidence which can be utilized for the bet- 

 ter knowledge of a subject which is of such interest to the edu- 

 cated portion of humanity. 



The "Cradle of the Human Race" has been discovered ( ?) by 

 many scientists, and by them located in many and widely sepa- 

 rated countries, but so far no incontrovertible evidence has 

 been adduced which would give any preponderance of evidence, 

 or even probability to any one of the given localities over the 

 others as regarding the origin of mankind, and it seems more 

 than probable that the locality or localities whence the race 

 or races sprang has be-en entirely obliterated by changes in the 

 earth's surface, and that the island, continent, or portion of dry 

 land first inhabited by man uoav forms the bed of one or more 

 of our great oceans. 



The late Professor Joseph Leconte in his "A Century of Ge- 

 ology" claimed that "The fundamental idea underlying geolog- 

 ical thought is theh istory of the earth. 



"That until the beginning of the nineteenth century the earth 

 was not supposed to have any histor5^ ' ' it was supposed to have 

 been made at once, out of hand, about six thousand years ago, 

 and to have remained substantially unchanged ever since as the 

 necessary theater of human history. 



An effort to crowd all the changes which have taken place in 

 the history of our earth into the period of time given by the 

 Jewish writings as the age of the earth, would be like attempt- 

 ing to force all the water of the Pacific Ocean into a lake. 



About the middle of the eighteenth century Buffon brought 

 out dimly the idea of an abyss of time, preceding the advent of 

 man, in which the earth was inhabited by plants and animals 



