ed in what is known as the Paleolithic Age! How strikingly
does it impress upon our minds the slow development of man! Is such
an antiquity for man in itself absurd? We know no reason for such a
conclusion. Our most eminent scholars nowhere set a limit to the time
of man's first appearance. It is true, many of them do not think the
evidence strong enough to affirm such an antiquity, but there are no
bounds given beyond which we may not pass.

Without investigation some might reject the idea that man could have
lived on the earth one hundred thousand years in a state of Savagism.
If endowed with the attributes of humanity, it may seem to them that he
would long before that time have achieved civilization. Such persons
do not consider the lowliness of his first condition and the extreme
slowness with which progress must have gone forward. On this point the
geologists and the sociologists agree. Says Mr. Geikie: "The time
which has elapsed from the close of the Paleolithic Age, even up to the
present day, can not for a moment compare with the aeons during which
the men of the old stone period occupied Europe." And on this subject
Mr. Morgan says: "It is a conclusion of deep importance in ethnology
that the experience of mankind in Savagery was longer in duration than
all their subsequent experience, and that the period of Civilization
covers but a fragment of the life of the race."<32> The time itself,
which seems to us so long, is but a brief space as compared with the
ages nature has manifestly required to work out some of the results we
see before us every day. We are sure, but few of our scholars think this
too liberal an estimate. All endeavor to impress on our minds that the
Glacial Age is an expression covering a very long period of time.

As to the time that has elapsed since the close of the Glacial Age there
is some dispute, and it may be that we will be forced to the conclusion
that the close of the Glacial Age was but a few thousand years ago. Mr.
Wallace assures us, however, that the time mentioned agrees well "with
physical evidence of the time that has elapsed since the cold has passed
away."<33>

Difficulties are, however, urged by other writers. We can see at once
that as quick as the glaciers are removed the denuding forces of nature,
which are constantly at work, would begin to rearrange the _debris_ left
behind on the surface, and in the course of a few thousand years must
effect great changes. Now, i