148 Minnesota Academy of Science 



therefore are mainly matters of interpretation and opinion, and 

 the first thing to be noted, at this point, is the unbiased and 

 judicial attitude of Barbour who had never committed himself, 

 so far as I know, on the question of the age of man in Amer- 

 ica, nor on the origin and age of the loess. 



The first objection brought forward by Shimek consists of 

 the admitted association of human bones, drift pebbles (of 

 granite), flint chips, fresh water and land shells; and he affirms 

 that "no such combination of materials is known in clearly 

 undisturbed loess in this country, and none has been found, 

 excepting in connection with mounds, which are clearly the 

 comparatively recent work of man." 



That is a sweeping statement, and the reader hardly knows 

 how to accept it in the light of the numerous records that have 

 been published of the finding of these articles in the loess. It 

 amounts to the arraignment of the veracity, as well as the 

 competency, of a large number of observers from Lyell in 1846 

 down to the latest publications, including the date of the Ne- 

 braska man himself. The association of these articles, two or 

 more of them, with the undisturbed loess in the valley of the 

 Mississippi has been affirmed so frequently that it is necessary 

 to assume either that Professor Shimek does not understand 

 the term in the same sense as most geologists, or that he is 

 unable to apprehend the facts so frequently asserted. He sim- 

 ply denies them. The effort to repeat them and to convince 

 him of error would be a task almost impossible to achieve. I 

 will say, only, that all those articles were found by the Con- 

 cannon farmers in the excavation of the tunnel near Lansing 

 in 1902 when the scattered remains of the Lansing skeletons 

 were taken from the undisturbed loess, in a tunnel 70 feet 

 long. 



Shimek next objects that a darker layer is found in what 

 Barbour considers undisturbed loess, at the depth of 7y^ to 8^2 

 feet from the surface, and he considers this as "additional con- 

 vincing evidence of the correctness of his conclusions." We 

 have to admit that it is equally convincing. In order to show 

 its force distinctly, I herewith reproduce Professor Shimek's 

 own photograph, and for the purpose of comparison it is put 

 alongside of one by Mr. Gilder, published in Records of the 



