arrived at; and, inasmuch as there were at least ten such changes,‘we
reach the following result: —
Years.
“ Last emergence, as above.................................... 14,400
Ten elevations and depressions, each equal to the last emergence................ 144,000
Total age of the delta................................................... 158,400’’*
In the excavation at the gas-works, ahove referred to, burnt wood
was found at the depth of sixteen feet ; and, at the same depth, the
workmen discovered the skeleton of a man. The cranium lay beneath
the roots of a cypress tree belonging to the eo u r th forest level
below the surface, and was in good preservation. The other hones
crumbled to pieces on being handled. The type of the cranium
was, as might have been expected, that of the a bo r ig in a l A m erican
R ace.
If we take, then, the present era a t 14,400 years,
And add three subterranean groups, each equal
to the living (leaving out the fourth, in which
the skeleton was fo u n d ),........................•. . . 43,200
We have a total of ;. . . . . . .................... 57,600 years.
From these data it appears that the human race existed in the delta
of the Mississippi more than 57,000 years ago; and the ten subterranean
forests, with the one now growing, establish that an exuberant
flora existed in Louisiana more than 100,000 years earlier: so that,
150,000 years ago, the Mississippi laved the magnificent cypress
forests with its turbid waters.f
In a note addressed to our colleagues, ISTott and Gliddon, April 19,
1858, Dr. Dowler says: —-
“ Since I sent you the ‘ Tableaux,’ several important discoveries have been made, illustrative
and confirmatory of its fundamental principles in relation to the antiquity of the human
'race in this delta, as proved by works of art underlying, not only the live-oak platform, but
also the second range of subterranean cypres^ stumps, exposed during a recent excavation
in a cypress basin.”
The cypress trees of Louisiana, and the antiquity claimed for them
here, naturally remind us of the longevity of other trees’in connexion
with the antiquity of the present era. The baobab of Senegal, as is
well known, grows to a stupendous size, and is supposed to exceed all
other trees in longevity. The one measured by Adanson was thirty
feet in diameter, and estimated to he 5250 years old. Having made
an incision to a certain depth, he counted 300 rings of annual growth,
and observed what thickness the tree had gained in that period; the
average growth of younger trees of the same species was then ascert
a i n e d , a n d the calculation made according to the mean rate of increase.
Baron Humboldt considered a cypress in the gardens of
Chapultepec as yet older; it had already reached a great age in the
reign of Montezuma, and is supposed to be now more than 6000
years old. If we could apply the criterion-scale of Dickeson and
Brown, some of these trees might prove to be older still. These
gentlemen counted 95 to 120 rings of annual growth in the cypresses
of Louisiana, and say, moreover, that the ligneous rings in the cypress
are remarkably distinct, and easily counted. How the cypress measured
by Humboldt was 40J feet in diameter. A semi-diameter of
243 inches, multiplied by 95, the smaller number of rings to an inch,
would give 24,036 years as the age of one generation of living trees.
The harder woods are of very slow growth, and some of the huge
mahoganies of Central America must be extremely old. The cour-
baril of the Antilles reaches a diameter of twenty feet, and is one of
the hardest timber trees; and the ironwood, from the same data, may
be ranked among the patriarchs of the forest.
Travellers have often been deterred from attempting to ascertain
the age of remarkable trees by the apparent hopelessness of the task.
To fell one of these giants of the woods was evidently impossible,
nor was it an easy matter even to make such a section as would facilitate
the calculation. This difficulty is now, happily, to a great
extent removed, and scientific travellers can hereafter obtain measurements
of the largest and hardest trees in the places of their
growth. Mr. Bowman has devised an instrument something like a
surgeon’s trephine, which, by means of a circular saw, cuts out cylinders
of wood from opposite sides of the tree, and thus furnishes the
most satisfactory results.* ^ _ : . , ,
Having drawn the general reader’s attention to a few geological j
and botanical evidences of the incalculable lapse of time required for
the existing condition of things upon our globe, let us endeavor to
raise a corner of the veil which obscures human sight of epochas anterior
to ours. Where our alluvial rivers flowed, where our present
vegetation flourished, where our mammiferous animals abounded,
science cannot assign, d, priori, a reason why all our different species
of mankind should not also have existed coetaneously. C u v ie r (says
Schmerling most truly,) does not contest the existence of man at the
epoch in which gigantic species peopled the surface of the earth. J
AVb content ourselves with lesser quadrupeds:
Fossil Fogs.—The dog has been the constant companion of man in
* J. Pye Smith. i
f For the parallel antiquity of the Nile’s deposits, cf. Gliddon, Otia JSgyptiaca, p. 61-69.
J Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles: Liege, 1883, i. p. 53.