350 



SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



PRIMEVAL MAN. 



THE history of our race, traced back a few thousand 

 years, loses itself in traditions and myths. We come 

 down out of a cloud of obscurity, in which we can just dis- 

 cern the rude forms of men clad in skins, frequenting the 

 caves of wild beasts, fashioning rude pottery, and practi- 

 cing in the chase with the primeval bow and arrow. Out 

 of the haze which hangs over the verge of antiquity come 

 sounds of conflict in arms, paeans of peace, hymns to relig- 

 ion, and the hum of barbaric industry. 



Our written history does not extend back to the origin 

 of man. The Mosaic records, which are undoubtedly the 

 oldest of our authentic documents, represent the western 

 portion of Asia as swarming with a population tolerably 

 advanced in the arts at a period two or three thousand 

 years antecedent to our era. There was, consequently, a 

 long interval of human history still anterior to this date. 

 What destinies befell our race — how did they live, whither 

 did they wander, during that prolonged infancy of which — 

 Revelation aside — we have no other information than such 

 as we have gleaned of the Mastodon, the Megatherium, or 

 the Zeuglodon ? 



The quickened intellectual activity of the modern age 

 has started new and interesting inquiries in this direction. 

 There are no questions which more profoundly interest us 

 than the history of primeval man. The investigation has 

 been pushed far beyond the limits of the most ancient writ- 

 ten documents. It has passed over the remoter domain of 



