VIII 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN NORTH AMERICA 1 
Ancient Shell Mounds — Man Coeval with Extinct Mammalia — Man in the 
Glacial Period — Palaeolithic Implements in North America — The 
Auriferous Gravels of California— Fossil Remains under the Ancient 
Lava Beds — Works of Art in the Auriferous Gravels — Human Re- 
mains in the Auriferous Gravels — Concluding Remarks on the 
Antiquity of Man, 
Oyer a considerable portion of the northern hemisphere the 
remains of man, or his works, have been found in association 
with bones of the extinct mammalia which characterised the 
Glacial epoch, and no evidence has been obtained that man 
at that time differed more from modern savages than they 
do among themselves. The facts which prove this antiquity 
were, when first put forth, doubted, neglected, or violently 
opposed, and it is now admitted that such opposition was 
due to prejudice alone, and in every case led to the rejection 
of important scientific truths. Yet after nearly thirty years’ 
experience we find that an exactly similar prejudice prevails, 
even among geologists, against all evidence which carries man 
one little step farther back into pre-Glacial or Pliocene times, 
although if there is any truth whatever in the doctrine of 
evolution as applied to man, and if we are not to adopt the 
exploded idea that the Palaeolithic men were specially created 
just when the flood of ice was passing away, they must have 
had ancestors who must have existed in the Pliocene period, 
if not earlier. Is it then so improbable that some trace of 
man should be discovered at this period, that each particle of 
evidence as it arises must be attacked with all the weapons of 
1 This article appeared in the Nineteenth Century , Nov. 1887. 
2 F 
