preceding pages also points. But as regards
Dr. Abbott's discoveries, they are on such a scale, and vouched for by
so many eminent observers, that we need no longer hesitate to accept
them, or complain of the scattering nature of the finds.

But we might inquire whether this is the earliest period to which the
presence of man can be ascribed in this country? Excepting, of course,
California, we do not know of any well established fact on which to
base a greater antiquity for man. However, this subject is very far from
being as closely studied as in Europe. Believing that in Europe man was
living before the Glacial Age, and that in all probability he was living
in California at the same early time, we would naturally expect to find
some evidence of his presence in the Mississippi Basin and along the
Atlantic seaboard. But no explorer has yet been fortunate enough to make
such discoveries.<59>

It is scarcely necessary to point out that we have only the relative age
of these gravel deposits. We have not yet arrived at an answer in years.
This we are not able to do. As we have several times remarked, our
American scholars, as a rule, do not think many thousands of years have
elapsed since the Glacial Age, and yet they are not all agreed on that
point. From the depths in the gravel and loess deposits that the stone
relics are found, we may suppose that man was present during the entire
series of years their formation represents. Prof. Aughey, to whose
discoveries in loess deposits in Nebraska we have referred, estimates
the length of time necessary to produce those deposits as between
nineteen and twenty thousand years, and this he considers a low
estimate. So we see that, at any rate, the date of man's first
appearance in America was certainly very far in the past.

In forming a mental picture of the conditions of life at that early
time, it is not necessary to imagine a dreary scene of Arctic sterility.
This is not true of the time when the Glacial Age was at its greatest
severity. But at the time we are now considering, the glaciers had
retreated over a large part of the country, though they still lingered
in northern and mountainous regions. Great lakes and majestic rivers
were the features of the country. The St. Lawrence was still choked
with ice, and the great lakes must have discharged their waters
southward.<60> The Mississippi, gathering in one mighty stream the
drainage of the Central Basin, sped onward to the