240 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



was considerably later than in the Old World ; but even 

 in America the race has probably looked upon the later 

 representatives of the mammoth and mastodon tribes. I 

 have myself exhumed mastodon bones from a bed of peat 

 not more than three feet deep, and which I believe could 

 easily have been accumulated during the last five hundred 

 years. The traditions of the American Indians in refer- 

 ence to the acquaintance of their ancestors with animals 

 which left these gigantic remains are probably founded 

 upon fact. 



But this is a subject to which I shall return. I am 

 tempted still to oifer a few farther reflections upon the 

 physical events marking the dawn of the Human Epoch. 



