Editorial Comment. 251 
which the subsequent lapse of time is computed to have been 
about 7,000 years. 
Evidences of man in somewhat earher stages of the general 
decline of the Ice age are found in the Trenton gravels of the 
Delaware valley, in similar valley deposits of Ohio, and in the 
modified drift of the Mississippi valley at Little Falls, Minne- 
sota. Much older geologic testimony of primitive man has 
been obtained in Idaho and California, carrying the record back 
to a period probably preceding the Ice age, but within the 
Quaternary era. It is certainly our duty, however, as urged 
by Holmes, to accept such testimony only when it is very clear 
and reliable. 
Geologic archseology in Europe rests on a firmer basis of 
ample observations, indubitably demonstrating man's existence 
there before the culmination of the Glacial period, and indeed, 
I think, before its beginning. From my examination of the im- 
plement-bearing gravel deposits of the Somme valley in north- 
ern France, where the proofs of man's great geologic antiquity 
were first recognized and published, I conclude that Paleolithic 
men began their occupation of that country before the epoch 
of great elevation of the lands which became glaciated, prob- 
ably contemporaneously, in both Europe and North America 
(American Geologist, vol. xxii, pp. 350-363, Dec, 1898). 
This conclusion, affirming the vast antiquity of mankind, but 
a'dmitting many differences of views as to the history of the 
Quaternary era and formation of the drift, is believed by Ho- 
worth to be shared by the majority of European geologists. 
The origin of the great races of mankind, namely, the Cau- 
casian or white race, the Ethiopic or black race, the Mongolic 
or yellow race, and the American or red race, seems probably 
to have been the result of many thousands of years under the 
influences of climate, food, and other conditions of life, in the 
several great continental regions inhabited by these races, to 
which mankind had previously become dispersed. The begin- 
ning of the human epoch, when our species gained such devel- 
opment of body and mind as to deserve its generic and specific 
name. Homo sapiens, v/e cannot well designate more clearly 
than to say that it far antedated the close of the Ice age. It 
Avas undoubtedly several times more ancient than the western 
Aryan migrations, which, by their relations to the waning Eu- 
