376 PALAEOLITHIC PERIOD, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WILSON. 



face and make a cleau edge, whether capable of being' chipped or not. 

 He also used largely the peculiar material chert, which closely ap- 

 proaches the European flint, and, like that rock, may be shaped by a 

 distinctive mode of chipping quite different from that exhibited by the 

 palaeoliths. 



The line of demarcation can be plainly drawn between the two classes 

 of implements. 



It is my opinion that the palaeolithic implements of the United States 

 correspond in use and purpose, as they do in their other qualities, with the 

 Chelleen implement of France, which was the representative implement 

 of that period. 



These comparisons might be continued indefinitely, and the more 

 thorough the comparison the greater will appear their similarity to 

 other palaeolithic implements and their dissimilarity to neolithic imple- 

 ments. 



When I compare implements found by the thousand on the hills and 

 in the valleys around the city of Washington with those, also found by 

 the thousand, distributed over the United States from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific, and find them to be substantially the same implement; when 

 I compare those from America with the equally great number from 

 Europe and the Eastern hemisphere, and find them all substantially 

 the same implement; and when again, comparing them with the imple- 

 ments of the neolithic period, whether European or American, I find 

 them to be unlike except in a few and insignificant details — when I re- 

 view all these facts I am forced to the conclusion that the implements 

 I exhibit from the District of Columbia are of the same palaeolithic 

 type as those found in the gravels at Trenton and elsewhere, and that 

 they tend to prove the existence of a palaeolithic period in the United 

 States. 



