NEW EVIDENCE OF GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO. 165 



southeastern Alaska, the Delaware and Ohio Valleys were densely 

 covered with forests. Of this we have abundant evidence in the 

 numerous trunks of trees which were overwhelmed by the ad- 

 vancing ice and buried in its debris all along the^ margin of the 

 glaciated area in Ohio. It was, therefore, easily within the reach 

 of men as intelligent as the Eskimos to maintain a comfortable 

 existence in the valley of the Ohio when the continental glacier 

 had expanded to its farthest extent. He did not need to resort to 

 caverns for shelter, since the forests furnished him with the readi- 

 est means for protection. 



When we reflect, also, upon the completeness with which the 

 habitations of the modern Indian have disappeared, we need not 

 be surprised at the total disappearance of the habitations of gla- 

 cial men. Nor is it strange that well-accredited discoveries of his 

 implements have so rarely been made in the undisturbed gravel 

 which gives us the surest evidence of his great antiquity. Natu- 

 rally, the cautious inhabitant of that time would have been some- 

 what careful about venturing down into the river valleys, whose 

 terrific and periodical floods were depositing the terrace gravel, 

 and, even though the imbedded implements were much more nu- 

 merous than they are, they would be relatively so few in propor- 

 tion to the great mass of material that the chances of finding one 

 in place would be extremely small. I have looked in vain for 

 implements in the extensive gravel pits on the Chelles and the 

 Somme in France, and so have the majority of archaeologists who 

 have visited those famous localities. M. Reinach, the Curator of 

 the Museum de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, has well said that one 

 can hope personally to make discoveries of implements in place, 

 as he would like to do, only by transforming himself into a hermit 

 and settling down for a series of years to observe the face of the 

 terraces where public excavations are in progress. 



Meanwhile the chance discoveries by competent observers who 

 are on the ground should be accorded their full value. Such 

 discoveries in this country, made by Dr. C. L. Metz at Madison- 

 ville, W. C. Mills at Newcomerstown, Mr. Huston at Brilliant 

 all of which are well attested in Ohio and by Dr. C. C. Ab- 

 bott and Profs. Putnam, Carr, and Whitney in the glacial terrace 

 at Trenton, N. J., form a cumulative mass of evidence which can 

 not well be resisted. So considered, the clear testimony of the 

 ancient chipped knife discovered by Mr. Huston at Brilliant, Ohio, 

 must go far to close the question of man's antiquity on the west- 

 ern continent, and to dispel the doubts upon the subject which, 

 for one reason or another, have heretofore existed. 



