PRIMEVAL MAX IN AMERICA. 



617 



heaps and shell-mounds ; in the great mounds of the so-called mound- 

 builders, scattered over the whole Eastern part of the continent, but es- 

 pecially abundant in the valley of the Mississippi ; and, finally, in the 

 wonderful cliff-dwellings and buried cities of New Mexico and Arizona. 

 But all this, though of extreme interest, belongs to archaeology rather 

 than geology. 



Quaternary Man in Other Countries. — In India* Palaeolithic imple- 

 ments, precisely like those found in Europe and elsewhere, were found, 

 in 1873, associated with extinct species of elephant, hippopotamus, 

 rhinoceros, and bear, in Quaternary deposits. In the South American 

 bone-caverns human remains have been found associated with Quater- 

 nary animals. 



Man, therefore, has been traced back with certainty to the Cham- 

 plain and even to the interglacial epoch. It is possible that he may be 

 hereafter traced farther to the Glacial or pre- Glacial period. Some 

 confidently expect that he will be traced to the Miocene, but this seems 

 extremely improbable, for the following reasons : 



a. He has been diligently searched for, without success. Now, 

 while negative evidence is rightly regarded as of little value in geol- 

 ogy, yet, in this instance, it is undoubtedly of far more than usual 

 value, because man's works are far more numerous and far more im- 

 perishable than his bones. 



b. Man probably came in with the present mammalian fauna. We 

 repeat here the diagram illustrating the law of extinction and appear- 



Fia. 981. 



ance of species. It is seen that lower species are far less rapidly 

 changed than higher. Living foraminifers may be traced back into 

 the Cretaceous ; living shells and other invertebrates to the beginning 

 of the Tertiary : but living mammals pass out rapidly and disappear 

 in the Middle Quaternary. Not a single species of mammal now living 

 is found in the Tertiary. Shall man, the highest of all, be the only 

 exception ? Man is one of the present mammalian fauna, and came in 

 with it. 



But, again, several distinct mammalian faunas have appeared and 



* American Journal of Science, 1875, vol. 



x, p. 232. 



