r<41> affirms,
that "the world never experienced a more beautiful period." And indeed
it seems as if the facts bear out this statement. A genial, temperate
climate was the rule, even to high northern latitudes. We need not doubt
but that there were grassy plains, wooded slopes, and rolling rivers.
Was man present to take advantage of all these favorable surroundings?
Did he wander through the evergreen forests, and hunt the deer,
antelope, and hogs--the hipparions, and mastodons, and deinotheres--then
so numerous?<42> We know of no inherent improbability of his existence
at that time. An ape belonging to a highly organized genus was then
living in Europe. Every condition considered necessary for the primeval
Garden of Eden was then satisfied. Let us stop for a minute and examine
the nature of the evidence considered sufficient to prove the presence
of man during any of the past geological ages.

Should we be so fortunate as to find portions of the bones of the human
skeleton in a geological formation in such positions that they could
not possibly have been introduced there since the deposition of the
containing bed, it would of course prove that man was at least as old
as the formation itself. But it happens that human remains in beds of
a previous geological age are very rare. Indeed, human remains in
formations of the Pleistocene Age,<43> during which we have ample
testimony, as we shall see, of the presence of man, are very rare. The
cases in which there can be no doubt can be reckoned on the fingers. The
explanation of this state of things is not at all difficult, for it is
only under very rare circumstances that portions of the bones of animals
even larger than man are preserved to us in geological strata. Vast
numbers die and vanish away without leaving a trace behind them for
every fragmentary bone we recover. In the case of man we must remember
that, in previous eras, he was present in very small numbers; that,
owing to his intelligence, he would not be as liable to be drowned and
swept away, and so mingle his remains with beds of river detritus
then forming, as were animals. Mr. Lyell has made some remarks on the
draining of the Haarlem Lake by the government of Holland in 1853, which
shows that even favorable circumstances do not always preserve remains
for future inspection. Though called a lake, this body of water was an
arm of the sea, covering about forty-five thousand acres. The population
which had lived