PRIMEVAL MAN. 369 



and every one must be convinced that the beaver, elk, pan- 

 ther, buffalo, and other quadrupeds of North America are 

 approaching extinction by perceptible steps. The fact is, 

 Ave are not so far out of the dust, and chaos, and barbarism 

 of antiquity as we had supposed. The very beginnings of 

 our race are still almost in sight. Geological events which, 

 from the force of habit in considering geological events, we 

 had imagined to be located far back in the history of 

 things, are found to have transpired at our very doors. 

 Our own race has witnessed the dissolution of those conti- 

 nental glaciers which we have so long talked of as inci- 

 dents of pre-Adamic history. Our own race has witnessed 

 the submergence of Southern Europe ; the detachment of 

 the British Islands and Scandinavia from the continent; 

 the wanderings of the great rivers of Eastern Asia ; the 

 submergence of thousands of square miles of the coast of 

 China, so that the seats of ancient capitals are now rocky 

 islets far at sea ; the emergence of the ancient country of 

 Lectonia ; the drainage of the vast lake which once over- 

 spread the prairies of Illinois ; the alternations of forests, 

 and many other events which we once associated with high 

 antiquity. It is the opinion of Hooker and Gray that the 

 Falkland Islands, and others in the vicinity, have formed a 

 part of the continent of South America during recent times, 

 and that during this connection they acquired the conti- 

 nental fauna and flora. The Straits of Behring may even 

 have been cut through since the early migrations of man 

 and his contemporaries, the mammoth and reindeer; as in 

 some distant future age the Isthmus of Darien, which now 

 connects North and South America, may become a strait 

 separating them. There is no more reason in this day than 

 fifty years ago to claim a hundred thousand years for the 

 past duration of our race. 



I can not refrain from noting the peculiar relief which 



