616 



PSYCHOZOIC ERA— AGE OF MAN— RECENT EPOCH. 



significant, however, that the elephant-tracks, also, formed but two 

 series. 



The weight of evidence is probably in favor of the mylodon, but 

 in any case there seems no reason to believe the age of the strata to be 

 earlier than the Quaternary. The only reason for assigning them to 

 an earlier period (Pliocene) is their lithified condition. But the pres- 

 ence in the quarry of hot springs, containing abundance of lime-carbon- 

 ate, sufficiently accounts for this. 



Quaternary Man. — Leaving out all doubtful cases, the first appear- 

 ance of man in America seems to have been about the same time as 

 or, perhaps, a little later than in Europe. On the Pacific coast his 

 implements are found in great abundance in river-gravels, associated 

 with remains of the mammoth, the great mastodon, and the horse. 

 On the Eastern part of the continent, also, the existence of man before 

 the ice-sheet had disappeared from the United States, is distinctly 

 proved. One of the best examples of this is found in the discovery by 

 Miss Babbitt, at Little Falls, Minnesota, of rude flint implements in 

 deposits, which were formed during the final retreat of the ice-sheet 

 from that region.* Another good example, is the discovery by Abbott, 

 in gravels near Trenton, New Jersey, of rude flint implements, similar 

 to Palaeolithic implements everywhere. The gravels are acknowledged 

 to have been formed during the retreat of the ice-sheet from New Jer- 

 sey. We give here a figure of one of these flints (Fig. 980). Still 



more recently hu- 

 man implements 

 have been found 

 in Ohio, under 

 conditions which 

 prove that man 

 lived there while 

 the northern part 

 of the Mississippi 

 Valley was still ice- 

 sheeted (Wright). 



There seems to 

 be no doubt, there- 

 fore, that in Amer- 

 ica, as in Europe, 

 lakes and rivers of 



Fig. 980. 



-Palteolith found bv Abbott in New Jersey, slightly reduced 

 (after Wright). 



retreating 



ice-sheet and the flooded 



man saw the 



the Champlain times. 



The history of the American man can 



be traced onward in refuse- 



* American Naturalist, vol. xviii, pp. 594, G97, 1884; and Wright's Ice Age, p. 538 



