e ease with which they could reach the
coast of California--and also of what Dr. Cooper has told us of the
climate and geographical surroundings of California at that early time.
So it may not be unreasonable to suppose that man reached California
long ages before he wandered into Europe, and so reached the Neolithic
stage of culture much earlier than he did in other parts of the
world.<27>

It might be objected, that if a people in the Neolithic stage of culture
lived in California in the Pliocene Age, they ought to have reached
a very high stage of culture indeed when the Spaniards invaded the
country. This is what we would expect had they been left to develop
themselves. The great geographical changes that took place near the
close of the Pliocene would cut off the primitive Californians from the
Asiatics. Not only was the land connection--if it indeed existed--now
destroyed, but causes were changing the climate. Ice and snow drove from
the north life of both animals and plants, and for an entire geological
period communications with Asia by way of the north must have been very
difficult, if not cut off altogether. Who can tell what changes now came
to the Asiatic branch of these people? We are but too familiar with
the fact that nations and races sicken and die: many examples could be
given. The natives of the Sandwich Islands seem doomed to extinction. In
a few centuries, the Indians of America will live only in tradition and
song.

Such may have been the fate of the early inhabitants of the Pacific
continent: certainly it would not be surprising, if the immense climatic
and geographical changes which then took place would produce that
result. Or it may be that but a scanty remnant lived on, absorbed by
more vigorous, though less highly cultivated stocks of the same people,
whose homes had been on the main-land of Asia--and the remnant left
along the Pacific coast must have lived on under vastly different
circumstance. The interior of North America was largely a dreary expanse
of ice and snow down to the 39th parallel of latitude. It is quite true,
this great glacier did not reach the Pacific Slope; but it must have
exerted a powerful influence on the climate: and the evidence points,
that the Sierra Nevada were occupied by local glaciers which reached
down into the fertile expanse of the plains.

This was certainly a far different climate, and a far different country,
than that which sustained a vegetation of a