ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 23 
grown old and dropped out of all tradition or histor- 
ical record before the days of the Pharaohs. Evidences 
exist to show that North America was probably in a 
physical condition to support animal life at as early a 
period as Asia. 
But before alluding to the early races of men, and 
particularly those of North America, let me make a 
single remark on its geological age, and then trace the 
earliest evidences of man in America and incidentally in 
other parts of the world. I need not speak of the pri- 
I mary and secondary geological period, as man did not 
then exist, nor in the present inquiry does the whole 
Mesozoic or the early Palaeozoic period demand much 
more of our attention. Among the later Tertiary pe- 
riods M. Desnoyers discovered in the chalk-pits of St. 
Prest, which belong to the Tertiary Pliocene period, 
evidences of man, associated with the remains of the 
southern elephant, the rhinoceros, leptorhinus, and a 
hippopotamus. The latter lived, according to Abbe 
Bourgeois, during the Miocene period, contemporary 
with the mastodons, kindred to the elephant, now ex- 
tinct The Tertiary man of St. Prest is much anterior 
to the troglodyte remains, and at least strengthens the 
hypothesis of man's existence prior to the last Glacial 
epoch. 
It is known to you that about the beginning of the 
Quaternary period the phenomena of the great changes 
upon the earth caused by glacial action, ceased. Fol- 
lowing this came the Diluvian, when mountain-torrents 
carried with them rocks, bowlders, and pebbles, some- 
times rending mountains and washing out the sides of 
the hills, transporting great quantities of the ^^^minto 
