| Epoch of aquatic plants | 1,500 | years |
| Epoch of the cypress basin, in which he assumes only two successive growths | 11,400 | „ |
| Epoch of live-oak platform | 1,500 | „ |
| ——— | ||
| Total | 14,400 | years |
The basis for his estimate of the age of the cypress basins was the computed age of the trees of the fourth level, ten feet in diameter and probably reaching 5,700 years.[138] Sir Charles Lyell in a later work, though still adhering to his former estimate of the time required in which to form the delta, cannot accept Dr. Dowler’s great antiquity for the remains.[139] The question in hand of course involves the question of the antiquity of the deposit where the skeleton was found, which is well-nigh identical with the vexed question of the age of the delta. The very diversity of opinion on this subject precludes the possibility of its consideration here. We will content ourselves by citing two estimates in addition to those already given. Professor Edward Hitchcock calculated that the entire delta embraced a bulk of matter equal to 2,720 cubic miles, for the deposit of which he thought 14,204 years necessary.[140] Humphries and Abbot think that both the area and thickness of the deposit have been overstated, and instead of 30,000 square miles for the former, they claim only 19,450. As to the latter, they estimate the thickness of the alluvial matter as but twenty-five feet on the river banks along the St. Francis swamp; thirty-five along the Yazoo swamp, and continuing of uniform thickness to Baton Rouge; while the artesian well at New Orleans showed it in that locality to reach a point forty feet below the level of the Gulf. These authors base their calculations as to the age of the deposits on the following ascertained facts: the total yearly contributions of the river equal a prism two hundred and sixty-eight feet in height, with a base of one mile square; two hundred and sixty-two feet is the supposed mean yearly advance of the river; the original mouth of the Mississippi was near the afflux of the Bayou Plaquemine, and has hence progressed two hundred and twenty miles since it began to empty its deposits into the Gulf. Supposing these data to be correct, they estimate that only four thousand four hundred years have elapsed since that period.[141] This would give the skeleton alluded to a comparatively recent origin. We are inclined to believe that the above estimate assigns a period for the formation of the delta as much too short as that of Sir Charles was too long. As to the antiquity of the skeleton, probably Dr. Foster’s solution of the question is as near correct as any that ever may be proposed: “Thus, then, with these carefully-observed computations before us, we are not prepared to accept the high antiquity assigned by Dr. Dowler to the human remains found beneath the surface at New Orleans. What he regards as four buried forests which once flourished on the spot, may be nothing more than driftwood brought down the river in former times which became embedded in the silts and sediments which were deposited on what was then the floor of the Gulf.”[142]
If all the indications were verified, we should be justified in assigning man a much greater antiquity in the Rocky Mountain region and on the Pacific slope than in any other part of North America. Mr. E. L. Berthoud collected numerous stone implements in what he considers to be tertiary gravel on Crow Creek and in the region of the South Platte River, Lat. 40 N., Long. 104 W. Two shells secured in the same locality by him have been pronounced a corbicula and a rangia respectively, and are thought to belong to the older Pliocene or possibly to the Miocene.[143] The evidence in this case is, however, unsatisfactory, and cannot be admitted to be of scientific value without further authentication.
In 1857 a portion of a human cranium was found associated with bones of the mastodon at the depth of one hundred and eighty feet below the surface in a mining shaft at Table Mountain, California. Dr. C. F. Winslow sent this fragment to the Boston Natural History Society, but no importance was attached to it, since no other evidence other than that furnished by workmen in the mine could be obtained. Subsequently, when an entire skull was reported to have been found in the gold drift near Angelos in Calaveras County, in a shaft one hundred and fifty feet deep, the intelligent portion of the community pronounced the finder guilty of a scientific fraud, and it is not yet a certainty that their decision was incorrect. However, Professor Whitney, of the State Geological Survey, upon hearing of the case examined the mine, and found that the shaft passed through five beds of lava and volcanic tufa and four beds of auriferous gravel. It was in one of these beds that the skull was said to have been found. Some of the cemented gravel was still adhering to the skull when it came into the Professor’s possession, and Professor Wyman, to whom it was submitted subsequently, refers to the difficulty which he had in removing the incrustation. Professor Whitney, on the testimony of the possessor of the skull, pronounced it an authentic “find,” and while his decision has been acquiesced in by a number of scientific gentlemen of repute, Professor Wyman among them, still the great majority, we believe, are unwilling to rest their faith on such slender evidence. Though no crack was apparent through which the skull might have fallen from the surface, such might have existed at an earlier period. In a region which is the product of volcanic action there is room for suspicion, especially in cases like both of these, where, as Sir Charles Lyell has said, no geologist was present at the moment of discovery to see the fossil in situ and extricate it with his own hands from the matrix which contained it.
President Edward Orton, of the Ohio State University, recently called our attention to the discovery of relics of human workmanship found many years ago near Waynesville, Ohio, at the depth of over twelve feet below the surface. Dr. Robert Furnas, a clergyman of the Society of Friends, courteously furnished us the following statement: “The relic was obtained about the year 1824. It was in the process of digging a well for my grandfather. My father, then twenty-one years of age, was performing the work of excavation, when at the depth of thirteen or fourteen feet he came to a dark mould about two feet deep, on the top of which was lying a thimble and a piece of coarse cloth six inches wide and a yard long. The outer edge containing the fringe showing the end of the chain or warp at the end of the fabric and point of fastening in weaving.” “The removal above after passing through the soil consisted of solid clay of a yellowish-brown color. The farm was purchased by my grandfather in 1803, and occupied by him to the time of his death in 1863. He was the pioneer of the place, having settled there in an unbroken forest. The location is on the top of the hill on the east side of the Little Miami River forty or fifty feet above the level of the stream. The cloth soon lost all traces of texture on coming in contact with the air. The thimble was in a pretty good state of preservation.”[144] Professor Orton, who has examined the locality and studied the case in hand, expressed the opinion to us that it was not only authentic, but (while not amounting to absolute proof) seemed to associate man’s works with a deposit which has furnished remains of the mastodon. The Professor considers the dark mould referred to as that upon which the relics were lying to be of an inter-glacial vegetable deposit peculiar to Southern Ohio, and once constituting an ancient surface of the land inhabited with animal life.[145] The cloth from its coarse character bears a resemblance to that of the mounds, while its length of just a yard is suggestive of more modern measurements.[146]
Dr. C. C. Abbott has unquestionably discovered many palæolithic implements in the glacial drift in the valley of the Delaware River near Trenton, New Jersey. Among a number of rude implements from the undisturbed gravel of the region is a spear-head, found six feet from the surface, on the site of the Lutheran Church, Broad Street, Trenton, N. J. The circumstances surrounding it were such as to justify the conclusion that the weapon had not gotten into its position where found “subsequently to the deposition of the containing layer of pebbles.” Subsequent investigation has brought to light sixty well finished flint implements, all of them from what appears to be undisturbed drift. Some of the relics have as many as from twenty to forty planes of cleavage, all equally weathered. The specimens are not unlike their neolithic counterparts taken from the aboriginal graves and stone cists of Tennessee.[147] Dr. Abbott concludes that the gravel, boulders, and rude implements associated with them were deposited by ice-rafts on the descent of a glacier down the valley, and that man more rude and ancient than the red Indian dwelt at the foot of the glacier, being driven south by its advance and following it again to the north upon its return.[148] Professors Shaler and Pumpelly, however, while considering the deposit as of glacial origin, think it was subsequently modified by water-action. Dr. Abbott, with great fairness, admits that, “Inasmuch as such subsequent action may have occurred long after the final deposition of the gravel, as true glacial drift, the antiquity of the contained stone implements is proportionately lessened.” Professor Shaler, after a partial examination of the locality, remarks that “if these remains are really those of man, they prove the existence of inter-glacial man on this part of our shore.”[149] Dr. Abbott and Prof. Aug. R. Grote believe that the Eskimo is the surviving representative of paleolithic and glacial man in North America. The latter believes that man reached this continent during the Pliocene, and before the ice-period had interfered with a warm climate in the north.[150] Recently Dr. Abbott has said: “It may be that, as investigations are carried further, it will result not so much in proving man of very great antiquity, as in showing how much more recent than usually supposed was the final disappearance of the glacier.”[151] On [page 30] we referred to mounds examined in the North-west, N. lat. 47°, W. long. 98° 38´, by General H. W. Thomas.[152] In these mounds crania indicating a very low type of intelligence were discovered—in form resembling skulls of the great Gibbon monkey.[153] From the standpoint of the development theory (and by this we do not mean evolution, but that progression which takes place when a savage advances from his low state toward civilization), the evidences are abundant that man is older by far on the Western side of the continent and perhaps in the North-west, than elsewhere in the new world. Though this discovery by General Thomas does not reach back in antiquity to geologic times, still it cannot be denied that a considerable period must have elapsed before low-type crania of the North-west could have developed into the crania of the Ohio Valley Mounds. Professor James Orton, in commenting on the investigations of Wilson on the coast of Equador, refers to the discovery of gold, copper and stone vestiges of a former population in the system of terraces traced from the coast through the province of Esmeraldas to Quito. He remarks: “In all cases these relics are situated below high-tide mark, in a bed of marine sediment, from which he (Wilson) infers that this part of the country formerly stood higher above the sea. If this be true, vast must be the antiquity of these remains, for the upheaval and subsidence of the coast is exceedingly slow.”[154] The antiquity of man in Europe is an established fact, but how remote is a question which science as yet fails to answer. When geologic research opens up Central Asia, no doubt man will be found to have existed there a long period anterior to his advent in Europe. But for the decadence of Arabic glory and learning we should now probably be in possession of a fund of information concerning that region as well as of man’s early history. Were the discovery of the human skull in the gold drift of California an authentic case, we should have strong reasons for supposing a remote intercourse existed between Asia and the Pacific coast. It is quite certain the crania of the North-west Mounds, as compared with those of the Mississippi region, clearly point to that fact. We have seen that as yet no truly scientific proof of man’s great antiquity in America exists. This conclusion is concurred in by most eminent authorities.[155] At present we are probably not warranted in claiming for him a much longer residence on this continent than that assigned him by Sir John Lubbock, namely, 3,000 years. Future research may develop the fact that man is as old here as in Europe, and that he was contemporaneous with the Mastodon. As the case stands in the present state of knowledge, it furnishes strong presumptive evidence that man is not autochthonic here, but exotic, having originated in the old world, perhaps thousands of years prior to reaching the new.
CHAPTER III.
DIVERSITY OF OPINION AS TO THE ORIGIN OF THE ANCIENT AMERICANS.
Conflict of Discovery and Dogmatism—Antipodes—Arabic Learning in the 8th Century—Spirit of Early Writers on America—Common Opinion as to the Origin of the Americans—Father Duran—Lost Tribes of Israel—Garcia—Lascarbot—Villagutierre—Torquemada—Pineda, etc.—Abbé Domenech—Modern Views—Pre-Columbian Colonization—Plato’s Atlantis—Kingsborough—The Book of Mormon—Phœnicians—George Jones—Greek and Egyptian Theories—The Tartars—Japanese and Chinese Theories—Fusang—The Mongol Theory—Traces of Buddhism—White-Man’s Land—The Northmen—The Welsh Claim.