682 The American Naturalist. [August, 
were the handiwork of man and of an antiquity before unsus- 
pected. He continued his labor, gaining converts with indif- 
ferent success, until the year 1859, when, by agreement, a 
committee of fifteen gentlemen, supposed to be the best quali- | 
fied for the task, and in their departments certainly the most 
learned men of Frahce and England, met on the ground to 
make personal investigations. After discussion, dispute, and 
difference of opinion, of which I need not speak here, it was 
_ finally decided that M. Boucher de Perthes was correct in his 
. theory, and that these implements were the work of men and 
of an antiquity heretofore unknown. 
Here was born the new science of Prehistoric Anthropology, 
and since then it has not only become recognized as a science, 
but whenever and wherever studied and understood it has 
increased in dignity and importance. 
I said a few lines back that the civilized world had, until 
the beginning of the nineteenth century, lived without knowl- 
edge of the prehistoric man and without even a suspicion of his 
existence. This is more true in Europe than in America. 
The knowledge of prehistoric man began on this continent 
several hundred years before it did in Europe. Columbus 
formed his acquaintance on the discovery of America. The 
white men on arriving beheld the prehistoric man face to face, 
and had ample opportunities for knowing, studying him, and ~ 3 
finding out everything that was discoverable from contact with 
him. Though many books have been written about the pre- 
historic man of America, and their authors have described him 
as they saw him, yet we know but little of his true nature. 
The scientific study of this subject has begun only of late 
years, and we are still ignorant concerning his history or life 
prior to the discovery of America in 1492; whence he came, 
to what race he belonged, or what were his habits, customs or 
monuments. We are even wanting in knowledge of those 
things peculiar to him since that time, and which have been 
manifested to us in every period of our contact with him. 
The study of his language, socialogy, religion, mythology, has 
just commenced. Many men have written descriptions of 
their visits to the Red Man of North America, have given his- 
