NOTES 219 



ported to occur in an iron mine near that place. Most interesting 

 phenomena were encountered, the ancient aborigines having pene- 

 trated the ore body in many directions and to surprising depths, the 

 purpose being, apparently, to obtain the red and yellow iron oxides 

 for paint. Many hundreds of mining tools of stone were found in 

 the ancient tunnels. The Leslie iron mine study has an interesting 

 bearing on the technic and industrial history of the tribes. It has 

 been a matter of much surprise, as the investigations of the ancient 

 mining and quarrying have progressed, that the aborigines, seem- 

 ingly so non-progressive and shiftless, should have conceived and 

 carried out really great enterprises. The technical knowledge and 

 skill displayed are of a low order indeed, but the work accomplished 

 indicates remarkable persistence and demonstrates the existence of 

 native capacity of high order. 



Excavations at Lansing, Kansas 

 In October, 1903, explorations were undertaken at Lansing, Kan- 

 sas, with the view of determining the age of the human remains 

 found embedded in loess-like formations near that place. The for- 

 mations were extensively trenched by Mr. Gerard Fowke under the 

 direction of Mr. William H. Holmes, and the conclusion was reached 

 that the remains were of exceptional antiquity for America, but that 

 they could not with certainty be assigned to a definite geological 

 horizon, and that they were probably of post-glacial time. The pur- 

 pose of the excavation was to expose the formations containing the 

 human remains so fully that geologists of all ways of thinking might 

 study them to advantage, thus preventing the adoption of conclu- 

 sions based on inadequate observations. An account of Mr. 

 Holmes' researches in this interesting field appears in the Smith- 

 sonian Report for 1902. The geological problems connected with 

 this site have been exhaustively treated by Prof. T. C. Chamberlin 

 in the Journal of Geology, Chicago, vol. x. No. 7. 



Fossil Bone-beds at Kimmswick, Missouri 

 Mr. W. H. Holmes, Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 with the assistance of Mr. Gerard Fowke, has made examinations 

 of the fossil bone-beds at Kimmswick, Missouri, with the view of 

 determining whether there was satisfactory evidence that man was 

 contemporaneous with the mammoth and the mastodon in that re- 

 gion. These researches dealt with the important and ever-recurring 

 question of the antiquity of man in America. It has been the aim 

 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and especially of the present 



