328 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



size, few natural objects on the immediate shores of the river are 

 as first seen by William Penn and his associates. This fact has not 

 been duly considered, and unwarranted conclusions have been pub- 

 lished as established truths all, of course, eliminating antiquity 

 from the Indian history of the region. The fact that a so-called pa- 

 leolithic implement was found lying on the surface of the river's 

 shore has resulted in a pen picture of a modern Indian attempting to 

 fashion a blade and tossing the pebble aside in disgust. Why, indeed, 

 could not an Indian walk on exposed gravel and pick up a pebble 

 as well as we can to-day? 



There are two considerations to which we must give heed when 

 this question is asked. We are, in the first place, tacitly informed 

 that the Indian was given to chipping stone in this haphazard way 

 to supply a sudden need upon the spot, all of which is not only not 

 a reasonable assumption, but absolutely incorrect, as argillite bowl- 

 ders and pebbles, which are not abundant in the gravels, were not 

 habitually used, but, instead, the mineral was systematically mined 

 and selected with skill, so that failures were reduced to a minimum. 

 Then, again, if the object as found has been lying undisturbed on 

 the river shore for centuries two centuries at least why is it that 

 the chips are not there also? These are never found under such 

 circumstances. In fact, they are very rarely found at all in the 

 gravel where the implement itself occurs, and in numbers they ex- 

 ceed the " reject " or finished object at least as ten to one. Further- 

 more, we are asked to believe that the river shore where we find 

 rude implements is the same to-day as when the Indian wandered 

 along it centuries ago. Fig. 1 shows clearly how the never-resting 

 tidal flow wears away the shore, carrying sand and fine gravels from 

 one point and spreading it elsewhere to form a sand bar, it may be, 

 and turning the channel from one side of the stream to the other, 

 and so exposing long reaches of the shore to wasting, that for many 

 a year had been fixed and apparently secure. Often the mud is en- 

 tirely removed from the underlying gravel, and abundant traces 

 of Indian occupation are brought to light, and, less frequently, so 

 strong a current attacks a given point that even the gravel is moved 

 and deep holes are formed, to be filled in time with the wasting 

 shore from a point perhaps a mile away. This is the story of the 

 river of to-day, and so it has been for centuries; and yet we are 

 asked to believe that we can fill the moccasin prints of the Indian 

 by walking now along the water's edge. I submit that it is asking 

 a great deal too much. 



It has been suggested that rudely chipped implements, when 

 found on the gravelly shore of the river, have fallen out from the 

 bank and rolled down from where they had long been lying. This 



