i86 The American Geologist. September, ism. 
Farther on, in the conclusion of the paper, the author says 
of this skeleton : "Any assumption that it is thousands of 
years old would carry with it not only the comparatively easily 
accepted assumption of so early an existence of man on this 
continent, but also the very far-reaching and far more difficult 
conclusion that this man was physically identical with the In- 
dian of the present time, and that his physical characteristics 
during all the thousands of years assumed to have passed have 
undergone absolutely no important modification." 
It may be answered that all the Pleistocene fauna and flora, 
driven southward by the accumulation of the continental ice- 
sheet and returning as the ice retreated, comprised the same 
species, with similar geographic range, as now. During the 
long Tertiary era, the proportion of species that are still living 
had gradually increased, until at the beginning of Quaternary 
or Pleistocene time probably all the present species had come 
into existence. They also had doubtless nearly the same range 
from east to west as now, some species and varieties being 
limited to the Atlantic coast, others to the Mississippi basin 
or the western plains, while the Cordilleran belt and the Pa- 
cific coast had each likewise its peculiar animals and plants. 
If men had occupied this continent at some time before the Ice 
age, as perhaps 100,000 years ago, the general physical char- 
acteristics of the tribes in the different parts of America may 
have become developed before the Iowan stage of the Glacial 
period, estimated 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, to essentially the 
same condition as at present, so that the people of the Missouri 
and Mississippi region then resembled very nearly the tribes 
now or recently living there. 
The most ancient pictures found in Egypt, belonging to a 
time about fyalf so long ago, prove that then the same physical 
differences existed between the Egyptian people and the negro 
and Assyrian peoples, on either side, as have since persisted 
through thousands of years. 
Whether the Lansing man lived during the decline of the 
North American ice-sheet or at some later time, as possibly 
only a third or a tenth so long ago, must be determined by the 
geologic deposits inclosing and overlying his skeleton. These 
seem to the present writer to belong to the Iowan stage of gla- 
ciation, consisting chiefly of an original deposit of loess. In 
