Mercer.] oJo [Nov. 16, 



many cave layers, here we found but one, namely, that representing 

 the North American Indian, and, finally, that while in Europe human 

 relics in the cave layers evidently reach back into geologically ancient 

 times, because of their association with the bones of extinct animals, 

 here, with two exceptions, the bones of animals, cooked and eaten by 

 the cave visitors, were modern. In other words we had failed thus far 

 to find any evidence of a race of mound builders antedating the Indian, 

 or any trace of the socalled Paleolithic man, who, if he existed in the 

 eastern United States, had, strange to say, avoided these caves, which 

 had not only given shelter to the Red Man, but, as bits of glass, buttons 

 and leather on the surface abundantly showed, had continually tempted 

 the ingress of the white man. 



Leaving, however, the presence of older layers in any Eastern caves 

 to be settled by further search, since it may be doubted whether we 

 have examined enough caves as yet to have banished Paleolithic man 

 from the Appalachian region, let us repeat that there was abundant 

 evidence to show that the modern Indian resorted to caves, for which 

 reason the Wyandotte cavern, near Leavenworth, in southern Indiana, 

 on the right bank of Blue river, about five miles from its mouth in the 

 Ohio, one of the last caves visited on our expedition, was of peculiar 

 interest. Though there seemed no use digging at its cramped entrance 

 for well-defined culture layers, though the cave, by its secluded position 

 might have been classed among caves difficult to find and therefore of 

 inferior promise to the explorer, nevertheless its archaeology, relating to 

 a comparatively modern time, presented considerations of importance, 

 These referred to two discoveries described some fifteen years ago bj^ 

 Mr. H. C. Hovey, of Newberryport, and Mr. Collet, of the Indiana Geo- 

 logical Survey. Before the meaning of Indian jasper quarries had been 

 disclosed at Piney Branch and Flint Ridge, these gentlemen, together 

 with Mr. H. W. Rothrock, owner of the cave, had found not only that 

 the Indians had quarried jasper, but that they had mined and carried 

 away carbonate of lime (stalagmite) from deep underground recesses. 



The splinters of jasper here shown were found by me in a room called 

 the "Pillared Palace," and represent the work done by Red Men, 

 when, in the treacherous light of primitive torches, they battered off 

 jasper nodules with quartzite boulders and worked down to partial fin- 

 ish the desired blocks. Mr. Hovey realized that certain irregularities 

 in the floor called till then "Bear Wallows" were the contours of 

 heaps of this roughly chipped debris mixed with charcoal and contain- 

 ing hammer stones, the quarry refuse, in fact, which the Indians had left 

 behind. I saw, as he did, the well-battered jasper nodules protruding 

 in layers from the limestone walls, while, then, in 1894, the chips lay 

 thick under foot. But though charcoal was easy to find on the floor, 

 the boulder hammers had all, save one, been removed, and I failed to 

 discover a finished blade or even one of the ruder wastrels, called 

 " turtle-backs," now so familiar to the searcher at aboriginal quarries. 



