Ilionai} Jicf/c.s in the Drift of Oliio. — C'/ci/poIe. 303 
Glacial era and were the work of the retreating ice or even of 
the torrents that flowed from it after the area in which the 
remains were found had been left bare. Oonsequently, if ev- 
er^' one of these cases was logically unassailable, and its evi- 
ilence positively conclusive, the only inference would be that 
man was a denizen of North America during the final with- 
drawal of the ice, that he hung Esquimaux-like on its borders 
and followed it as it withdrew to the northward. 
Of any earlier date than this, therefore, for man in North 
America we have no evidence whatever, and even this lias 
been regarded with scepticism and its value denied by men of 
<Mninence in the field of archjeology. Such scepticism is wise 
and justifiable so long as it can be logically maintained. So 
important a conclusion demands support much stronger than 
that which would amply establish many less momentous prop- 
<)sitions. The first evidences of glacial man in Europe were 
received with an incredulity bordering on unreason by even 
the leaders of the geological thought of that day. Some part 
of this ()pi)osition was, it is true, due to a cause much more 
influential then than it is now — theological prejudice. Apart 
from this, however, a stubborn reluctance was manifested 
against the admission of a doctrine so new and so revolution- 
ary as that of the great antiquity of man. But the slow ac- 
cumulation of facts, which admitted no denial, had, at length, 
its inevitable eff'ect and the doctrine is now accepted as the 
■only rational conclusion from the data. 
Here also certainty will come with time. If man lived in 
North America during the Ice age we shall find yearly more 
and more traces of that existence until the cumulative proof 
V)ecomes irresistible. If he did not then exist the absence of 
such traces will become more and more obvious as the years 
])ass by. A few doubtful instances may be explained away 
and leave no conviction. But many and repeated and con- 
stantly recurring examjiles, if well established, must, at length, 
pile up a mass of evidence that cannot be gainsaid. 
Every archa'ologist is well ac(iuainted witii the cases that 
have been brought forward during the past few years tending 
to i>rove the presence of man in this country during the later 
l)art of the Ice age. Man}' also outside of the archaeological 
Tanks ha\e become strongly interested in llie (piestion and 
