EVIDENCES OF GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO. 29 



EVIDENCES OF GLACIAL MAN IN OHIO. 



BY PROF. G. FREDERICK WRIGHT. 



THE recent sweeping denials by Mr. W. H. Holmes, of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology, respecting the validity of the evidence 

 upon which the existence of glacial man in America has been so 

 generally accepted makes it necessary to present the facts in 

 greater detail than has heretofore been done. It seems that Mr. 

 Holmes has been himself looking for palaeolithic implements in 

 undisturbed gravel of glacial age for two or three years, but has 

 not found any ; and that he has discovered that the Indians had 

 quarries and workshops in various places where they threw aside 

 great piles of partially wrought and rejected implements which 

 were of such shape as not to be readily available for their pur- 

 poses, and which had a faint resemblance to palaeolithic imple- 

 ments. In view of these experiences Mr. Holmes has come to the 

 conclusion, first, that all the so-called palaeolithic implements 

 which have been found by Dr. C. C. Abbott and others in America 

 are simply " rejects " ; and, secondly, that nobody in America has 

 found any implements iri undisturbed gravel of glacial age. In 

 Science for January 20, 1892, he uses the following language : " If 

 there was, as is claimed, an ice-age man, or at any rate a palaeo- 

 lithic man, in eastern America, the evidence so far collected in 

 support of these propositions is so unsatisfactory and in such a 

 state of utter chaos that the investigation must practically begin 

 anew." 



The best answer which I can give to this sweeping denial will 

 be to present, with illustrations, the details concerning a single 

 discovery in Ohio with which I am familiar, namely, that at New- 

 comerstown. But, to get the full significance of this discovery, 

 and the cumulative value of the evidence afforded by it, a brief 

 statement of other discoveries must be made. 



The evidence naturally begins with that at Trenton, N. J., 

 where Dr. C. C. Abbott has been so long at work. Dr. Abbott, 

 it is true, is not a professional geologist, but his familiarity with 

 the gravel at Trenton, where he resides, the exceptional oppor- 

 tunities afforded to him for investigation, and the frequent visits 

 of geologists have made him an expert whose opinion is of the 

 highest value upon the question of the undisturbed character of 

 the gravel deposit. The gravel banks which he has examined so 

 long and so carefully have been extensively exposed by the 

 undermining of floods on the river-side, but principally by the 

 excavations which have been made by the railroad and by private 

 parties in search of gravel. For years the railroads had been at 

 work digging away the side of the banks until they had removed 



