BALCH— EARLY MAN IN AMERICA. 477 



over as a young man from Germany and settled at Trenton. He 

 became interested in Abbott's discoveries and started in to verify 

 them for himself. In 1889, he began to work under the general 

 direction of ^Ir. F. \\\ Putnam for the Peabody Museum of Har- 

 vard University and he has kept up his researches to the present 

 time. And his patient, persevering labors for so many years have 

 absolutely confirmed all of Abbott's contentions. Working in the 

 fields, and watching excavations in the Delaware River channel, in 

 the sewers of Trenton and other places, Volk has independently 

 proved that there are three stages of culture at Trenton : on top a 

 historic Indian stage with many jasper and some argillite imple- 

 ments, and some of these implements polished and so placing the 

 upper horizon in the Neolithic period ; a middle horizon in the 

 Yellow Sand Drift with only some chipped argillite implements, thus 

 placing this stage in a paleolithic stage of culture ; and a much 

 lower horizon connected with the Glacial gravel and bearing a few 

 chipped argillite implements and some rough quartzite ones, the 

 latter especially showing an early paleolithic stage of culture.'* 



Until recently Abbott's and Volk's results were accepted by the 

 minority and were rejected by the majority of American archeolo- 

 gists. Now the position taken by so many leading American 

 archeologists is, however, perhaps not extraordinary. In the first 

 place they started from the preconceived notion that all the early 

 inhabitants of this country were historic Indians. And it is hard to 

 throw off a belief which is justified by the most apparent facts en- 

 dorsing it unless overwhelming evidence is produced against it. In 

 the next place, none of these archeologists took the only means pos- 

 sible of verifying for oneself the evidence presented at Trenton, 

 namely a long investigation, patiently carried out for weeks and 

 months on the spot. They flitted in and out, something like; as you 

 will remember, the guests did who tried to pull out the sword from 

 the tree in Richard Wagner's W^alkiire. " Gaste kamen und gaste 

 gingen " but the sword remained in the tree just the same. 



Another cause also influenced strongly American archeologists 



■^ Ernest Volk, " The Archeology of the Delaware Valley," Papers of the 

 Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard Univer- 

 sity, 1911. 



