ring plants probably culminated in the Miocene. The same rule holds
good for the animal world also. As man is the most highly organized of
all the animals, we can not hope to find any evidence of his presence
until we find proofs of the presence of all the lower types of life. Of
course future discoveries may change our knowledge when the series is
complete; but, from our present stand-point, he could not have lived
before the Miocene Age, and we have seen how faint and indecisive are
the proofs of his presence even then. But should it finally be proved,
beyond all dispute, that man did live in the Miocene Age, we must
observe that this is but a small portion, but a minute fraction, of the
great lapse of time since life appeared on the globe. We are a creation
of but yesterday, even granting all that the most enthusiastic believer
in the antiquity of man can claim.

Illustration of The Mastodon.-------------

REFERENCES

(1) The manuscript of this chapter was submitted to Prof.
Winchell, of the University of Michigan, for criticism.
(2) Dana's "Manual of Geology," p. 146.
(3) Ibid. p. 147.
(4) Nicholson's "Manual of Zoology," p. 59.
(5) Dana's "Manual of Geology," p. 74.
(6) Nicholson's "Manual of Zoology," p. 42.
(7) Dana's "Manual of Geology," p. 323.
(8) Nicholson's "Zoology," p. 402.
(9) Dana's "Geology," p. 302.
(10) Dawkins's "Early Man in Britain," p. 6.
(11) Dana's "Geology," p. 382.
(12) Haywood's, Heer's, "Primeval World of Switzerland."
(13) Dana's "Man. Geology," p.395.
(14) Nicholson's "Man. Zoology," p.42.
(15) Marsh: "American Assoc. Rep.," 1877.
(16) Marsh: "American Assoc. Rep.," 1877.
(17) Dawkins's "Early Man in Britain," p. 6.
(18) Nicholson's "Manual of Zoology," pp. 419 and 504.
(19) When we talk of first appearance, we mean the discovery of
remains. All who believe in the doctrine of evolution, know that
the class Mammalia must have appeared early in Paleozoic times.
Thus, Mr. Wallace says, "Bats and whales--strange modifications
of mammals--appear perfectly well developed in the Eocene.
What countless ages back must we go for the origin of these
groups--the whales from some ancestral carnivorous animal, the
bats from the insectivora!" and even then we have to seek for
the common origin of these groups at far earlier periods.
"So that, on the l