32 
toner's address. 
the strata correctly named and assigned to its true 
geological position, the evidence of man's existence 
upon this continent will be carried back to the Miocene 
period. And if the discovery of the human skull in 
the Pliocene deposit of Calaveras County, California, 
is to be credited, it is the earliest human remains yet 
found, older even than the stone implements of Abbe- 
ville and Amiens, described by Dr. Falconer, or those 
furnished by the caves of Belgium and France.* 
If the hypothesis be correct that all the primitive 
races of mankind appeared upon the earth without a 
knowledge of any of the arts, there can be little doubt 
that before they were acquired man must have had a 
severe contest for existence with the elements and the 
fierce animals which surrounded him. Man's dwelling- 
places then, doubtless, were in caves or grottoes, and 
such localities as were easily rendered inaccessible 
to beasts of prey.f The fact that caves are still 
In the drift deposits of San Joaquin Valley, near Sacramento, were 
discovered a plummet and a stone hatchet. In Jersey County, Illinois 
was found the innominate bone of a man associated with flint implant 
and the bones of extinct animals. Also, human remains and imple- 
ments were noticed in the drift deposits in the valley of the Sacra- 
mento, the Osage, the valley of the Missouri ; in the last case they 
were associated with the bones of a mastodon. Human remains have 
also been found in other places, all pointing to their great antiquity. 
f As confirmative of this view, it is well known that caves have 
been discovered in almost every country affording conclusive evidences 
of their having been occupied as habitations by human beings. In 
Ethiopia, Upper Egypt, the borders of the Red Sea, Moesia, Mau- 
ritania, and the northern part of the Caucasus, and throughout 
the mountainous regions of Arabia, are numerous caves which have 
been converted into the dwelling-places of the half-savage Bedouins. 
Ptolemy, the Grecian geographer, described what he called races of 
