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These older alluvial strata must, according to M. de Mortillet, be of pre-glacial date and could not have been carried past the sites of the lakes, unless each basin had previously been filled and levelled up with mud, sand, and gravel, so that the river channel was continuous from the upper to the lower extremity of each basin.
If we confine ourselves, however, to the conclusions regarding ancient man which are generally accepted, we must say that he has not been clearly traced back beyond the Glacial Period, though some of the relics found in the older river gravels and in the lowest cave accumulations may well be of pre-glacial age.
Several of the pre-Glacial sketches show us lank and gawky savages with the body covered with long scratches, answering exactly to the scratches which represent the hanging hair of the mammoth, and suggesting that man then still retained his old original hairy covering.
In our own horse these lateral toes have become reduced to what are known by veterinaries as splint bones, combined with the canon in a single solidly morticed piece. But in the pre-Glacial horses the splint bones still generally remained quite distinct, thus pointing back to the still earlier period when they existed as two separate and independent side toes in the ancestral quadruped.
All these new Sierra landscapes were evidently predestined, for the physical structure of the rocks on which the features of the scenery depend was acquired while they lay at least a mile deep below the pre-glacial surface.
To return to our hunter, however, who for aught we know to the contrary may be our old master himself in person, he is a rather crouching and semi-erect savage, with an arched back, recalling somewhat that of the gorilla, a round head, long neck, pointed beard, and weak, shambling, ill-developed legs. I fear we must admit that pre-Glacial man cut, on the whole, a very sorry and awkward figure.
We are free at least to speculate that European man gained some slight knowledge of agriculture in the pre-glacial period, but this is doubtful, and the relics of early man yield no evidence in its favor. Mentally it is questionable if he was advanced beyond the level of the least developed negro tribes, and perhaps not beyond that of the forest pygmies.
By assuming such a succession of events we can more easily explain why there has not been a greater extermination of species, both terrestrial and aquatic, in polar and temperate regions during the glacial epoch, and why so many species are common to pre-glacial and post-glacial times.
No, if we want to get at genuine, unadulterated primitive man we must go much further back in time than the mere trifle of 250,000 years with which Dr. Croll and the cosmic astronomers so generously provide us for pre-Glacial humanity.
"I think," observed Plank, laying his half-consumed cigar on the silver tray, "that I'd better go down town and see what our pre-glacial friend Quarrier wants. I may be able to furnish him with a new sensation." "I wonder if Quarrier ever experienced a genuine sensation," mused Siward, arranging the papers before him into divisional piles. "Plenty," said Plank drily. "I don't think so."
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