Note 1610 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

Again he says: “Man may be assumed to be prehistoric wherever his chroniclings of himself are undesigned, and his history is wholly recoverable by induction. The term has, strictly speaking, no chronological significance; but in its relative application corresponds to other archæological, in contradistinction to geological periods.” Of America he says: “A continent where man may be studied under circumstances which seem to furnish the best guarantee of his independent development.” Dawkins (Cave hunting, 136) says: “For that series of events which extends from the borders of history back to the remote age, where the geologist, descending the stream of time, meets the archæologist, I have adopted the term prehistoric.”