AN ANCIENT DUNE. 55 



the power to repair the damage so that it can deceive the observant 

 eye and skilled hand of the experienced archaeologist. When a " for- 

 eign " object is discovered in the yellow sands, it is recognized at 

 once as part and parcel of the containing bed. If, again, intrusion 

 were possible, why is not pottery found at all depths to which un- 

 doubted artifacts occur? Why not the familiar surface finds that 

 collectively we call " Indian relics " ? I have gathered probably 

 fifty thousand such objects, and have lingered so long over sand 

 banks and gravel beds that I feel entire confidence in the message 

 they hold out to me, and this intimate association has a significance 

 that is not within the experience of the casual observer, who too 

 frequently is the victim of preconceived ideas. To decipher a sand- 

 bank requires patient labor and constant association and, above all, 

 endless comparisons of one point of view with another. Without 

 this, the digging of a single trench and the gathering of a few 

 score " traces " of man's presence is what the hint is to a practical 

 demonstration. Unfortunately the hint has often led to the most 

 grotesque conclusions, and the fact of man's antiquity been hidden 

 by an array of assertions to the contrary, not one of which has an 

 iota of warrant. I assert without fear of successful contradiction 

 that " Indian " relics do not occur in the yellow sands underlying 

 the forest floor. 



The character of the disappearance of the forest floor by rain- 

 wash or wind at once demonstrates that such traces of a people who 

 were forest-dwellers as stone artifacts and pottery would ultimately 

 be left scattered over the surface of the underlying formation, upon 

 which the forest floor had been built up. The greater part of such 

 traces, as axes, celts, spear-points, steatite vessels and pottery would 

 prove too heavy for the gentle action of rain or wind, and a storm's 

 cataclysmic action zuoitld only bury such objects with abundant evi- 

 dence of hozv they were buried, so no confusion need arise. As it is, 

 we find, on the one hand, the relics of the historic Indian with traces 

 of the country's Colonial period, and, on the other, with such traces 

 of the precursor of this forest-dweller as were left upon the surface 

 of the ground when the forest floor began to accumulate, or earlier. 

 No one hesitates to separate the pennies of the English kings from 

 Indian arrow-points, although found together ; but upon what basis. 



