Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/815

Rh and hesitation in the path of progress, has its mind made up to contest his existence in the Orient. What the leaders of this school maintain is this: In the East, say they, civilization, and consequently historic records, date back to a very remote time. Is it not, then, possible that geological time still persisted in Europe, and especially in western Europe, while in Egypt the historic dynasties were being founded?

To put forth such a proposition as this, one must be ignorant of the data of geology. The remarkable collections exhibited at the Anthropological Exposition have shown that man was contemporary not only with the reindeer, the saiga, the chamois, and the marmot on our plains; not only with the mammoth, and the Rhinoceros tichorhinus—that is, with the fauna of the glacial period—but also with the great hippopotamus, the Elephas primigenius, and the rhinoceros of Merk. All geologists are agreed that the duration of the period in which we live is as nothing compared with that of the Quaternary period. It is as a day compared to ages, as a drop of water in a stream. All paleontologists understand what a length of time is requisite for the rise and decline of animal species—species which, while they have been upon the earth, have been lavishly distributed over an enormous area.

But we have no need of the general data of geology and paleontology in order to meet the objection. The Exposition of the Anthropological Sciences furnished materials which reduce it to a nullity. There were exhibited perfectly characterized quaternary instruments of silex from the East—from the most ancient seats of civilization, Egypt and Syria. In those countries then, no less than in France and England, quaternary man preceded all the historic civilizations.

The earliest Quaternary epoch, the preglacial, is characterized, so far as man's works are concerned, by a stone implement of peculiar form. It is dressed on its two sides, usually rather roughly chipped; it is rounded at the base, pointed at the top, and its edges are pretty sharp. In general form it is more or less almond-shaped. This implement, in past times called by workmen in quarries "langue de chat" (cat's tongue), is now called "hache de St. Acheul," or "hache acheulienne" (hatchet of St. Acheul), terms derived from the locality in which it has been oftenest found. They have been found in abundance in the quaternary alluviums of France, England, and Spain. Nay, within a few years they have been found in the valley of the Delaware near Trenton, New Jersey, by Dr. Charles C. Abbott. The figures which he has published, and his descriptions, tally exactly with the St. Acheul hatchets of France and England.

Nor is it in the New World only that the existence of man in the earliest portion of the Quaternary period has been proved; the same thing is true of the Old World. M. Place, the explorer of Assyria, has brought to light a St. Acheul hatchet of silex which he found under the ruins of the palace of Khorsabad. At the exposition, the Abbé Richard showed a St. Acheul hatchet, also of silex, from the lake of Tiberias.