776 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



previously quoted. We are familiar with the Newcomerstown 

 flint, and can challenge the production of any reject from the neo- 

 lithic refuse-heaps, or indeed of any fac-simile that could mislead 

 a real expert on either continent. We are giving no opinion here 

 on its nature or on its relation to the gravels in which it is found. 

 We simply protest against the assumption by any one of the right 

 to deny the competence of the oldest and most careful observers 

 in favor of his own innuendo and without a tittle of evidence. It 

 is idle to tell us that " gravels reset," * that " flints may be intro- 

 duced after deposition," that " stones may be broken by Nature so 

 as to simulate the work of man," etc. All this we know, but we 

 ask the reason for suspecting that these things have happened 

 here and without detection. Without this the objections are 

 mere insinuations from men who will not admit that others know 

 more than themselves ; effusions of the " omniscients " in the garb 

 of "agnostics," if we may be pardoned for borrowing the style of 

 the Emerald Isle. 



We scarcely agree with some of the critics that it is unadvisa- 

 ble to take the public into confidence until final and positive re- 

 sults are obtained. This, again, savors too much of officialism. 

 The reading part of the public is interested in the work of dis- 

 covery not less than in the outcome, and is able and willing to 

 watch its process. Prof. Wright was advised against publica- 

 tion by the " head of the glacial division," on the ground of the 

 immaturity f of the investigation and the liability to teaching the 

 public erroneous views. The ready sale of The Ice Age in North 

 America, now in its third edition, is a proof that the public was 

 ready and the time ripe, and few who have read it with ordinary 

 care can fail to grasp the real condition of the problem. We 

 think that any reader who deduces final and positive conclusions 

 from the book has read it to little purpose. Suspense of judg- 

 ment is not a state of mind congenial to the untrained or always 

 found in the trained, but this must be the mental attitude of any 

 reader of the work in regard to the great problem of which it 

 treats. Anxious regard for the public is entirely supererogatory. 



Moreover, if justification for such publication of incomplete 

 work were required, it may readily be found in the example of 

 the " head of the glacial division " himself, who very soon after 

 his appointment published in the Second Annual Report a map of 

 the terminal moraine of the second Glacial epoch. How incom- 

 plete this was may easily be seen by any one who will take the 

 trouble to compare it with the latest work in the same field. Mo- 

 raine after moraine has been added outside the terminal moraine, 



* American Antiquarian, January, 1893, p. 35. 

 f Dial, January 1, 1893, p. 8. 



