THE   CANADIAN   JOURNAL.

                   NEW  SERIES.

      No.  XCVL — OCTOBER,  1877.
 

SUPPOSED  EVIDENCE OF  THE EXISTENCE  OF

        INTER-GLACIAL  AMERICAN  MAN.
 

BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., FR.S.E,
 

  The determination of a so-called palaeolithic period for Europe,

with its rude implements of stone and flint, chipped into shape

without the aid of any grinding or polishing process, and belonging

to an era  when the European man was  associated  with animals

either wholly extinct or unknown throughout the historic period,

naturally stimulates  the curiosity of American archaeologists in

their own  native explorations.  But thus  far only very slight and

uncertain indications have  seemed to  point to  any  corresponding

evidences of a like antiquity for  American man.

  Various  causes combine to give to the researches of the American

archaeologist a character essentially distinct  from that which marked

the earlier stages of antiquarian investigation in Europe, and which

stimulated  its votaries  to  ally themselves with the students of

geology in  a renewed and more strictly scientific inquiry into the

earliest traces of primeval man.  In Europe the antiquary had long

been engaged  in the elucidation of ancient historic monuments; and

had passed beyond these to a study of the ruder traces of  primitive

art, and  of the  physical characteristics of  races which appeared to

have preceded the historic nations  of the Old World.  The researches

directed  to the solution of  the problems  thus originated were

followed up  through mediaeval,  classical,  Assyrian, and  Egyptian