pendent on the time that has elapsed since the
close of the Glacial Age, which, as we have seen, is not yet a settled
point. If it be true that the islands of the Pacific commenced to sink
during late Tertiary times, then we have a measure of that time in the
growth of coral, which has required at least four hundred thousand years
to form reefs the thickness of some that are known to exist.<32>

But here, again, it seems we are not certain when this depression
commenced.<33> In a previous chapter we have gone over the Glacial Age,
and have seen when, according to Mr. Croll's theory, it commenced. This
was probably not far from the close of the Pliocene Age. We might as
well leave the matter here. There are so many elements of uncertainty
that it is doubtful if we will ever be able to assign satisfactory dates
to the epoch.<34>

In bringing to a conclusion this somewhat extended notice of early man
in California we have to admit that much of it is speculative; still it
is an endeavor to explain known facts. The main statement is that man
lived in California in the Pliocene Age, in the Neolithic stage of
culture. Whether the arguments adduced in support of this statement are
sufficient to prove its accuracy must be left to the mature judgment
of the scientific world. There is no question but that the climate and
geography, the fauna and the flora, were then greatly different from
those of the present. Starting with these known facts, so strange
and fascinating, it need occasion no surprise, if the pen of the
enthusiastic explorer depict a scene wherein facts and fancy are united.

In this case truth is certainly stranger than fiction, and when, in
imagination, we see the great Pacific archipelago emerge from the waves,
and, in place of the long swell of the ocean, we picture the pleasing
scenes of tropic lands, the strange floral growth of a past geological
age, the animal forms which have since disappeared, with man already
well advanced in culture: when we recall all this, and picture forth the
surprising changes which then took place, the slowly subsiding land, the
encroaching waters, and the resultant watery waste, with here and there
a coral-girt island, the great volcanic uplift on the main-land, the
flaming rivers of molten lava, which come pouring forth, followed by
the night of cold, ice, and snow: when we consider these, and the great
lapse of time necessary for their accomplishment, how powerless are mere
wor