indicated by any of the European
explorations. Some hold that the proof of his existence here in Pliocene
times is far more satisfactory than any evidence of his presence in
Europe during this time. There is something fascinating in this belief.
If some of the most eminent scientists of America are not mistaken, man
lived on our Pacific coast before the great ice-sheets that pulverized
the surface of the earth and dispersed life before them came down from
the north. He ranged along the western rivers before the volcanic peaks
of the Sierras were uplifted, and his old hunting-grounds are to-day
buried underneath the greet lava flow which desolated ancient California
and Oregon. But this assertion has not been allowed to pass undisputed,
nor has it received the assent of all scientists.

We can easily understand why scholars subject all questions relating
to the first appearance of man to very careful scrutiny. If a competent
geologist should assert that he had found, in undoubted Pliocene
formations, bones of some species of animals not hitherto suspected of
living at that date, his statement would be accepted as proof of the
same. But in the case of man, every circumstance is inquired into. It
is but right that the utmost care should be exercised in this direction.
But, on the other hand, we are not justified in demanding mathematical
demonstration in every case of the accuracy of a reported discovery. Yet
such seems to be the position of a portion of the scientific world. For,
although they willingly admit that man has lived on the earth for a very
long time indeed, they urge all sorts of objections to extending that
time into a past geological age.

Accordingly, when Professor Whitney states as the result of many years
spent in the investigation of the Tertiary formation of California, that
he finds evidence of the existence of man in the Pliocene Age, it is not
strange that one part of the scientific world listens incredulously to
his statements, and are at once ready to explain away the facts on which
he relies. He may, of course, be mistaken, for it is human to err, but
his proofs are sufficiently strong to convince some of the best scholars
in America. We can do no more than to lay the facts before the reader
and let him judge for himself.

We have seen what a genial climate prevailed in Europe during the
Tertiary Age. This must also have been true of California. A rich and
varied vegetation decked the land. The