This refers to discoveries made on the coast of Ecuador in 1860, by James S. Wilson, Esq. At various points along this coast he found “ancient or fossil pottery, vessels, images,” and other manufactured articles, all finely wrought. Some of these articles were made of gold. The most remarkable fact connected with them is that they were taken from “a stratum of ancient surface earth” which was covered with a marine deposit six feet thick. The geological formation where these remains were found is reported to be “as old as the drift strata of Europe,” and “identical with that of Guayaquil in which bones of the mastodon are met with.” The ancient surface earth or vegetable mould, with its pottery, gold-work, and other relics of civilized human life, was, therefore, below the sea when that marine deposit was spread over it. This land, after being occupied by men, had subsided and settled below the ocean, remained there long enough to accumulate the marine deposit, and again been elevated to its former position above the sea level. Since this elevation, forests have been established over it which are older than the Spanish Conquest, and now it is once more subsiding. In 1862, at a meeting of the Royal Geological Society, Sir Roderick Murchison spoke of these discoveries as follows: “The discoveries Mr. Wilson has made of the existence of the works of man in a stratum of mould beneath the sea level, and covered by several feet of clay, the phenomenon being persistent for sixty miles, are of the highest interest to physical geographers and geologists. The facts seem to demonstrate that, within the human period, the lands on the west coast of Equatorial America were depressed and submerged, and that after the accumulation of marine clays above the terrestrial relics the whole coast was elevated to its present position.” Assuming the facts to be as Mr. Wilson reports (and they have not been called in question), it follows that there was human civilization to a certain extent in South America at the time of the older stone age of Western Europe. The oldest Peruvian date of Montesinos is quite modern compared with this. The fact may be considered in connection with another mentioned in the section on American Ethnology, namely, that the most ancient fauna on this continent, man probably included, is that of South America. But, without regard to what may be signified by these discoveries of Mr. Wilson, there is good reason for believing that the Peruvian civilization was much more ancient than it has been the fashion to admit.