24 
So Lucretius, — 
“ Thus, too, the insurgent waters once o’erpowered, 
As fables tell, and deluged many a state ; 
Till, in its turn, the congregated waves 
By cause more potent conquered, heaven restrain’d 
Its ceaseless torrents, and the flood decreased.” 
Barbarism covered the whole Western world; neither in the 
2,000 years before Abraham, nor in the 2,000 years afterwards, 
have we any light reflected from these regions to the East. In 
this 4,000 years, or in the somewhat longer period which pro- 
bably will be ultimately settled as warranted by the record, we 
place hypothetically all the phenomena of the later mammalian 
age, including the introduction of man as a hunter, the first 
occupation of the caves by him also, the diluvial phenomena of 
the wide valleys, the oscillations and disturbances of the 
earth’s crust, alterations in the coast-line and physical settle- 
ment of the country; after this comes the second occupation of 
the caves. In short, if we say that, hypothetically, the whole 
first-known human age occurred within 4,000 years of the Chris- 
tian era, no one can say that it is geologically impossible. Who 
can say that 1,G43 years is insufficient to comprise all the pheno- 
mena that occurred during a period confessedly characterized 
by more rapid and extensive action than the present, — a period 
during which ruptures in the earth’s crust, oscillations, and 
permanent uprising took place, and the intermittent action 
of violent floods caused the deposit and disturbance and re- 
settlement of the gravels and brick-earth? There is nothing 
to interfere with the prevalent opinion that man was introduced 
here whilst the glacial period was dying out, and whilst it was 
still furnishing flood-waters sufficient to scour and re-sort 
the gravels of the valleys down which they flowed. This suppo- 
sition may be extended to both the great continents. Professor 
Dawson says , — “ A sufficient number of probable indications 
appear to make it not unlikely that man had reached America 
before the disappearance of the mastodon.”* 
The late Sir It. Murchison, and the late Mr. J. W. Flower, 
who had made careful study of the drifts, attributed the im- 
plement gravels to the sudden and tumultuous action of floods 
not of long continuation. In the discussion on Mr. Prest- 
wich’s paper of February, 1872, the latter expressed himself 
“ willing to concede that the implement-bearing gravel-beds 
had been deposited under more tumultuous action than that 
due to rivers of the present day, though still forced to attribute 
* Leisure Hour, 1874, p. 740. 
