FOOTNOTES:
[1] Las Casas: Historia de Indias, lib. I, cap. 40, tom. I, MS. Irving: Columbus, vol. I, p. 158 (N. Y., 1851 ed.). Navarrete: Coleccion de los viajes, tom. I, p. 176. Grynaeus: Novus Orbis, p. 66, Basil, 1555, fol. Herrera: Historia General, Dec. I, lib. I, cap’s ii et vi, Madrid, 1730.
[2] Rafn: Antiquitates Americanæ, p. 45, note. Rafn: Op. cit., pp. xxx–xxxiii.
[3] Rafn: Historia Thorfinni Karlsefnii (in Ant. Am.), pp. 149, 181; also, De Costa: Pre-Columbian Discovery of America, pp. xxxii, xxxiii, 21, 41, 57, 58, 69, 70, 73, 74, 110; Gravier: Découverte de l’Amérique par les Normands au Xe Siècle, p. 83. Paris, 1874, 4to.
[4] Prof. Jos. Leidy, in Hayden’s 6th Ann. Report of the U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories (1872), pp. 652–3, describes the stone implements found in the Bridger basin in southern Wyoming. He remarks, “The question arises, who made the stone implements and when, and why should they occur in such great numbers in the particular localities indicated. My friend, Dr. J. Van A. Carter, residing at Fort Bridger, and well acquainted with the language, history, manners, and customs of the neighboring tribes of Indians, informs me that they know nothing about them. He reports that the Shoshones look upon them as the gift of God to their ancestors. They were no doubt made long ago, some probably at a comparatively late date, that is to say, just prior to communication of the Indians with the whites, but others probably date centuries back.”
[5] It would be foreign to the object of this work to enter upon a discussion of the antiquity of man in Europe. Were we to follow the example of several writers on the antiquities of America, we might present a resumé of the splendid achievements of science in determining the approximate age of man, as an inhabitant of different portions of the old world, but such condensed accounts at best are unsatisfactory and often detrimental to science because of their very slenderness. The evidences of man’s antiquity being far more remote than the generally accepted historic period, antedating its beginning by several thousand years, no doubt exist. The discoveries in the Liége caverns, in the caves of Languedoc and in the cave of Engihoul in Belgium; in the Neanderthal and Engis caves; at Abbeville and Amians; the valley of the Somme; the basin of the Seine; of the Thames; and of the lake dwellers of Switzerland, as well as the shell-heaps of Denmark, point to an antiquity which half a century ago it would have been heresy to have dreamed of. We have but to refer to the admirable work of Sir Charles Lyell: The Antiquity of Man (Phil., 1863), and to the well-known works of Lubbock, Tylor, Vogt, and others. A good treatment of the subject in brief will be found in Foster: Pre-Historic Races of the U. S. (1873), and a pointed and popular reference to it in Bryant’s History of the U. S., vol. I. N. Y., 1876.
[6] Evidences of the Antiquity of Man in the U. S., by Col. Charles Whittlesey. A memoir of 20 pp. Perhaps the chief importance of the above-cited cave discoveries is derived from the eminence of the antiquarian who cites them, rather than in their real value to science. In the case of the Elyria cave—examined by Dr. E. W. Hubbard, Prof. J. Brainerd, and the author of the memoir—“the grindstone grit,” resting on shale, formed a grotto of considerable size. Four feet of the floor of the cave, consisting of charcoal, ashes and bones of the wolf, bear, deer, rabbit, squirrels, fishes, snakes and birds (“all of which existed in this region when it became known to the whites”), was removed and three human skeletons discovered. The author states that the three had been crushed by a large slab of the overhanging sandstone falling on them, but fails to state how much of the overlying material consisted of this sandstone slab. He remarks: “Judging from the appearance of the bones, and the depth of the accumulations over them, two thousand years may have elapsed since the human skeletons were laid on the floor of this cave.” The Louisville cave discovery is no more satisfactory than the above. It is scarcely necessary to remark that all the evidences are of a comparatively recent interment, and much less than two thousand years would have been sufficient to produce the conditions described. See also discoveries at High Rock Spring, Saratoga, N. Y., cited by Col. Whittlesey, p. 10, and more fully treated by Dr. McGuire in the “Proceedings of the Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist.,” vol. xii, p. 398, May, 1839, in which the latter claims to find traces of the Red man 5470 years ago. It is not probable that Dr. McGuire’s traces are those of the Indians, nor is it certain that they were left by human beings at all, since the pine tree (found at a considerable depth and worn as he supposes by the feet of Indians) was as liable to have been worn by the feet of animals as of men. See also Dr. Abbott, The Stone Age in New Jersey, Smithsonian Report, 1874, p. 246 et seq. See this work, pp. 127–8.
[7] Squier and Davis: Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Washington, 1848, 4to, 1st vol. of Smithsonian Contributions; Dr. J. A. Lapham: Antiquities of Wisconsin, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, 1855. More recently—The Upper Mississippi, by George Gale, Chicago, 1868; The Mississippi Valley, by Dr. J. W. Foster, Chicago, 1869, 8vo, and his Pre-Historic Races of the U. S., Chicago, 1873, 8vo. We might add a list of names scarcely less eminent, of authors who have written upon special fields and examined particular works. A reliable bibliography of literature on the Mound-builders is a desideratum which we trust some enterprising Americanist may soon supply.
[8] Described by Dr. Wm. Blanding in a letter to Dr. Morton, of Philadelphia. Foster: Pre-Historic Races of the U. S., p. 148, and Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 105. Foster: p. 151.
[9] Squier: Antiquities of Western New York, vol. ii, Smithsonian Contributions, 1851. See an interesting account of the Antiquities of Orleans County, New York, by F. H. Cushing, in Smithsonian Report for 1874, p. 375.