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Now it should be observed that the Book of Mormon has nothing to say about the occupation of America by man before the arrival of the Jaredites. If scientists find, beyond controversy, that there were human beings here before the building of the tower; in fact, before the flood and way back in glacial ages, the authors of that volume offer no objection at all. They do not touch that question. They only assert that the Lord led the brother of Jared and his colony to this country shortly after the dispersion, and they give the briefest possible outline of the political and ecclesiastical history of their descendants until their final overthrow. This has never been, and cannot be, disputed on scientific grounds. If America was occupied by any race of people—pre-Jaredites, we may call them—information concerning them must be gathered, not from the Book of Mormon, but from geological strata, or from archeological remains extant. No truth that scientists may discover by these or any other means is contrary to anything set forth in the Book of Mormon.

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