532 PRIMITIVE INDUSTRY. 



that other great depot of Palieolithie implements which furnished a 

 greater number probably than any other in the world; and he has 

 shown that the dissemination of the implements through these grav- 

 els rendered it very unlikely that any person could find an imple- 

 ment in any given length of time. On the other hand, Dr. Capitan dis- 

 covered a deposit in the southwestern part of France during the summer 

 of 1892, of which he said he found an implement or ;i bit of worked flint 

 every five minutes. It was quite different from this in the workshop 

 of Bois de Rocher in Brittany, discovered by MM. Micault and Fornier. 

 That was a Avorkshop, and the implements were found all together and 

 in a few days' or hours' excavation. Consider the comparative scar- 

 city of these implements in the Chelles and St. Acheul gravel banks, 

 and the comparative scarcity of these implements in the gravel deposits 

 at Trenton will not appear strange, nor will the fact that gentlemen 

 spend weeks or even months in the search through tliese gravels in 

 what proved a vain attempt to find Paheolithic implements be evidence 

 against their existence. Imagine the gravel bank adjoining the Penn- 

 sylvania Kailroad depot at Trenton, extending by estimate, eastward 

 half a mile, a quarter of a mile in width, the gravel 20 or even 30 feet 

 in thickness, dug down and thrown into cars upon temporary tracks, 

 which are moved each day or each week close into the bank — imagine, I 

 say, this great mass of gravel, amounting to millions of cubic feet, with 

 the number of Paheolithic implements said to have been found by Dr. Ab- 

 bott, I care not whether we take the smallest luimber, 40, or the largest 

 number 400 or 500, scatter them through this pile of gravel, and then 

 consider what would be the chance of a person finding one of these, I 

 care not what his ability as an observer, how ubiipiitous he was, nor 

 with what attention and zeal he followed the shovel of the diggers and 

 inspected the fine gravel they threw out. I <ui]y lepeat the sole con- 

 clusion intended by this line of argument — that it is no proof these 

 implements do not exist in these gravels that other gentlemen have 

 sought for and failed to find them; while Dr. Abbott, who has lived in 

 the neighborhood all his life, has been engaged in the search for twenty 

 years or more, has invoked the aid and enlisted the co-operation of his 

 neighbors, the diggers, and the public in general, and during all that 

 time has found only the number suggested, I care not whether it be 

 40 or 400. No attempt has been made by anyone to imj)each the ve- 

 racity of Dr. Abbott in this matter. We must accept his statement as 

 to the finding of the implements. The conclusions to be drawn from 

 his facts are fair subjests for argument, and I would not pretend be- 

 cause we uuist follow Dr. Abbott's facts, that therefore we must 

 necessarily adopt his conclusions. 



It maybe said that in this matter Dr. Abbott has been deceived; 

 that the implements to which he has attributed this antiquity have been 

 fabricated, imposed upon him as genuine, when they might have been 

 made by the workmen with intent to deceive. ♦This has occurred ia 



