56 ABBOTT— ARCH^OLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF 



we are asked, is a distinction to be drawn between a chalcedony 

 knife or elaborate gorget and a rude basalt or argillite point with 

 which it is now associated? It has been denied that any such dis- 

 tinction could be drawn and it is curious and significant to know 

 that the vehemence of this insistence is in direct proportion to igno- 

 rance of the locality. The conditions that here obtain are favorable 

 to preservation of traces of the sequence of events ; very generally 

 they are absent. 



To eliminate doubt, when a trench is opened, or where any 

 digging is done, other than systematic trenching, the present sur- 

 face — in no sense an " Indian " surface — for a reasonable depth is 

 not admitted to be demonstrative as to the age or origin of the arti- 

 facts found therein. This zone of doubt I have considered to be the 

 topmost six inches, after removal of the twelve inches of surface 

 that has been continually disturbed by cultivation. Assuming the 

 forest floor to have been twelve inches thick — I have found it con- 

 siderably more in some localities — then an artifact found some ten 

 inches below the zone of doubt would have been forty inches below 

 the surface if the forest floor still existed. When, then, we con- 

 sider that this dune, treated by others, as well as by myself, at dif- 

 ferent points, have exposed pebbles, and some too large to suggest 

 eolian origin as to locality, shells, marine and fresh-water, frag- 

 ments of bone and artificially'produced chips of basalt and argillite, 

 and a few of chert, and completed artifacts. 



In my own experience, the position of every object, as exposed, 

 suggested — demonstrated ? — that it had not slipped, down any 

 crevice, but always with the long axis of its diameter horizontal. 

 This, I believe, is the experience of those who have examined the 

 deposit. Several long, narrow points of basalt or argillite have 

 been recovered and every one was as described, as to position ; the 

 deposit suggesting, by reason thereof, water action and the points 

 floated or rolled to their position when found. However this may 

 be, the fact remains, that the dune, assumed to be post-glacial, has 

 a geological antiquity and that it contains traces of man that reach 

 back to the time of its formation. 



A few words in conclusion concerning the sand deposits of the 

 neighborhood. As familiar to all, the unimpressionable rock is our 



