THE FOSSIL MAN OF LANSING, KANSAS. 



465 



which the bones were found, and, in consequence thereof, the age of 

 the bones themselves has been the subject of not a little discussion, 

 and of wide differences of opinion. Already the literature of the sub- 

 ject is considerable, and the reader who chooses may find it in the dis- 

 cussions by Professors Wmchell and Upham, in Science and the Amer- 

 ican Geologist, by Professor Chamberlin, in the Journal of Geology, 

 and, more recently, by Dr. Holmes, in the American Anthropologist. 

 The subject, too, has been fully discussed at the Congress of American- 

 ists in New York, and at the various meetings in Washington during 

 the session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

 It is fortunate that the conditions were such that there can be no 



View looking Northward across the Mouth of the Tributary? Valley, showing 

 Concannon's house at the left and the truncated slope under it, the mouth of the valley just 

 beyond, and in the center the north bluff with its truncated face 07erlooking the Missouri 

 bottoms, on the edge of which the railroad lies. The bluff is about 160 feet high. From a 

 photograph by Mr. Chamberlin. 



serious doubt concerning either the discovery itself or the nature of 

 the remains. The small ravine, near the mouth of which the bones 

 were discovered, opens upon the flood-plain of the Missouri Eiver from 

 the west. The ravine is less than a mile in length, with a fall of more 

 than one hundred feet, and has no running stream, save perhaps for 

 a short time in wet weather. Very near its mouth it has a tributary 

 branch, perhaps a quarter of a mile in length, coming from the south, 

 nearly parallel with the river bank. It is at the extremity of the inter- 

 vening spur that the excavation was made, beginning a few feet above 

 the bed of the ravine and extending southward nearly horizontally for a 

 distance of seventy feet. The cave itself has for its floor in its whole 



VOL. LXII. 30. 



