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the portions of the human skeleton thus far recovered, which are beyond a doubt referable to this period, are too fragmentary to base such important conclusions upon. This is the view of Boyd Dawkins, who thinks "we can not refer them to any branch of the human race now alive." "We are without a clew," continues he, "to the ethnology of the River Drift man, who most probably is as completely extinct as the woolly rhinoceros or the cave bear." Future discoveries will probably settle this point. It is yet a much disputed point to what particular portion of the Glacial Age we can trace the appearance of man. We can profitably note 96 the tendency of scientific thought in this direction. But a short time has elapsed since a few scholars here and there began to urge an antiquity for man extending back beyond the commonly accepted period of six thousand years. Though it is now well known and admitted that there are no good grounds for this estimate, yet such was its hold, such its sway over scientific as well as popular thought, that an appeal to this chronology was deemed sufficient answer to the discoveries of DePerthes, Schmerling, and others. It was but yesterday that this popular belief was overthrown and due weight given the discoveries of careful explorers in many branches, and the antiquity of man referred, on indisputable grounds, to a point of time at least as far back as the close of the preceding geological age. It seems as if here a halt had been called, and all possible objections are urged against a further extension of time. It is, of course, well to be careful in this matter, and to accept only such results as inevitably follow from well authenticated discoveries. But it also seems to us there is no longer any doubt that man dates back to the beginning of that long extended time we have named the Glacial Age. In the first place, we must recall the animals that suddenly made their appearance in Europe at the beginning of this age. Though there were a number of species, since become extinct, the majority of animal forms were those still living. These are the animals with which man has always been associated. There is therefore no longer any reason to suppose the evolution of animal life had not reached that stage where man was to appear. We need only recall how strongly this point was urged in reference to the preceding 97 geological epoch, to see its important bearings here. Mr. Boyd Dawkins has shown that the great majority of animals which invaded Europe at the commencement of this age, can be traced to Northern and Central Asia, whence, owing to climatic changes, they migrated into Europe. Inasmuch as man seems to have been intimately associated with these animals, it seems to us very likely that he came with them from their home in Asia. We think the tendency of modern discoveries is to establish the fact that man arrived in Europe along with the great invasion of species now living. Turning now to the authorities, we find this to be the accepted theory of many of those competent to form an opinion. In England Mr. Geikie has strongly urged the theory that the Glacial Age includes not only periods of great cold, but also epochs of exceptional mildness; and he strongly argues that all the evidence of the River Drift tribes can be referred to these warm interglacial epochs; in other words, that they were living in Europe during the Glacial Age. In answer to this it has been stated that the relics of River Drift tribes in Southern England overlie bowlder clay, and must therefore be later in origin than the Glacial Age. But, Mr. Geikie and others have shown that the ice of the last great cold did not overflow Southern England, so that this evidence, rightly read, was really an argument in favor of their interglacial age. The committee appointed by the British Association to explore the Victoria Cave, near Settle, urge this point very strongly in their 98 final report of 1878. To this report Mr. Dawkins, a member of the committee, records his dissent, but in his last great work he freely admits that man was living in England during the Glacial Age, if he did not, in fact, precede it. Mr. Skertchley, of the British coast survey, in 1879, announced the discovery in East Anglia of Paleolithic, implements underlying the bowlder clay of that section. Mr. Geikie justly regards this as a most important discovery. Finally Mr. Dawkins, in his address as President of the Anthropological section of the British Association, in 1882, goes over the entire ground. After alluding to the discovery of paleolithic implements in Egypt, India, and America, he continues: "The identity of implements of the River Drift hunter proves that he was in the same rude state of civilization, if it can be called civilization, in the Old and the New World, when the hand of the geological clock struck the same hour. It is not a little strange that this mode of life should have been the same in the forests of the North, and south of the Mediterranean, in Palestine, in the tropical forests of India, and on the western shores of the Atlantic." This, however, is not taken as proving the identity of race, but as proving that in this morning-time of man's existence he had nowhere advanced beyond a low state of savagism. Mr. Dawkins then continues: "It must be inferred from his widespread range that he must have inhabited the earth for a long time, and that his dispersal took place before the Glacial epoch in Europe and America. I therefore feel inclined to view the River Drift hunter as having invaded Europe in preglacial times, along with other living species which then appeared." He also points out that the evidence is that he lived in Europe during 99 all the changes of that prolonged period known as the Glacial Age. Sir John Lubbock also records his assent to these views. He says on this point: "It is, I think, more than probable that the advent of the Glacial Period found man already in possession of Europe." In our own country Prof. Powell says: "It is now an established fact that man was widely scattered over the earth at least as early as the beginning of the Quaternary period, and perhaps in Pliocene times." This completes our investigation of the men of the River Drift. We see how, by researches of careful scholars, our knowledge of the past has been enlarged. Though there are many points which are as yet hidden in darkness, we are enabled to form quite a clear mental picture of this early race. Out of the darkness which still enshrouds the continent of Asia we see these bands of savages wandering forth; some to Europe, Africa, and the west; others to America and the east. This was at a time when slowly falling temperature but dimly prophesied a reign of arctic cold, still far in the future. This race does not seem to have had much capacity for advancement, since ages came and went leaving him in the same low state. During the climax of glacial cold he doubtless sought the southern coasts of Europe along with the temperate species of animals. But whenever the climatic conditions were such that these animals could find subsistence as far north as England he accompanied them there, and so his remains are found constantly associated with theirs throughout Europe. Though doubtless very low in the scale, and at the very foot of the ladder of human progress, we are acquainted with no facts connecting them with the higher orders 100 of animals. If such exists, we must search for them further back in geological time. The men of the River Drift were distinctively human beings, and as such possessed those qualities which, developing throughout the countless ages that have elapsed, have advanced man to his present high position. REFERENCES (1) This chapter was submitted to Prof. G. F. Wright, of Oberlin, for criticism. (2) Lyell's "Antiquity of Man;" Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 332. (3) It is, however, applicable to only a portion of the Quaternary, or Post-tertiary period. (Wright.) (4) Chapter II. (5) Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 339. (6) Dawkins's "Cave Hunting," p. 365. (7) Dawkins's "Early Man in Britain," p. 112. (8) Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 337. (9) The majority of the Pliocene animals disappeared from Europe at the close of the period in question. This includes such animals as the mastodon, hipparion, and many kinds of deer (Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 334). The following animals survived into the Glacial Age, and some even into Interglacial periods: African hippopotamus (still living), saber-toothed lion, bear of Auvergne, big-nosed rhinoceros, Etruskan rhinoceros, Sedgwick's deer, deer of Polignac, Southern elephant. ("Prehistoric Europe," p. 95.) (10) The northern animals include the following: Alpine hare, 101 musk-sheep, glutton, reindeer, arctic fox, lemming, tailless hare, marmot, spermophile, ibex, snowy vole, chamois. (Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 32.) (11) Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 28. (12) The following animals are given as southern species: Hippopotamus, African elephant, spotted hyena, striped hyena, serval, caffer cat, lion, leopard. In addition to the above there were also four or five species of elephants and three species of rhinoceros, which have since become extinct. (Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 32.) (13) It is scarcely necessary to give a list of these animals. Prof. Dawkins enumerates thirty-three species. The following are some of the most important: Urus, bison, horse, stag, roe, beaver, rabbit, otter, weasel, martin, wildcat, fox, wolf, wild boar, brown bear, grizzly bear. (Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p, 32.) (14) Dawkins's "Early Man in Britain," p. 191. (15) Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," p. 316. (16) Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 87. (17) Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 50. (18) Geikie's "Prehistoric Europe," p. 54. (19) Ibid., p. 55. (20) Kane's "Arctic Exploration," Vol. I,
