CORRESPONDENCE. 



697 



But let this pass. Major Powell writes 

 on another page of a human skeleton alleged 

 to have been found in a bluff excavated by 

 the Mississippi River in the loess that bor- 

 ders its channel. He says : 



" The loess is a formation contemporane- 

 ous with the glacial formation of the north. 

 The discovery of a human skeleton in this 

 situation was believed to prove that man 

 dwelt in the valley of the Mississippi during 

 the loess-forming period. The discovery 

 seemed of so much importance that the site 

 was visited by Sir C. Lyell, who, on examina- 

 tion, at once affirmed that the skeleton was 

 not found in the loess itself, but in the 

 ' overplacement,' or modified loess that is, 

 in the talus of the bluff and all geologists 

 and archaeologists have accepted the deci- 

 sion." 



We fear that this circumstantial story on 

 examination will prove to be similar to some 

 other evidence that has been brought for- 

 ward in the current discussion, and it is 

 with no little surprise that we see so promi- 

 nent a geologist advancing arguments so 

 weak and testimony so garbled. But we 

 will for a moment waive this objection. 

 Assuming that Sir C. Lyell did express the 

 opinion here maintained by Major Powell, 

 we may be allowed respectfully to remark in 

 passing that if that geologist was able so 

 easily and so long ago as 1846 to distinguish 

 between the bluff and the " overplacement," 

 it is a little late to claim the criteria of this 

 distinction as a discovery of any geologist 

 or any body of geologists in the present day. 

 This is a discovery of the already discovered, 

 an appropriation of the " finds " of other 

 men, equal to any of the wonderful deeds 

 related in the travels of the renowned Cap- 

 tain Brazier. Sir Charles must have been 

 born too soon at least forty years ahead of 

 his time. The geological world of America 

 has only just come up to him. 



But returning to our main line, we can 

 not even at this point allow Major Powell's 

 argument to rest. A regard for logic com- 

 pels us to tax him with carelessness and in- 

 accuracy, if not with misrepresentation, in 

 his references to Sir Charles Lyell. He re- 

 fers as above to that author's Second Visit 

 to the United States. How correctly this 

 is done a comparison of his words with the 

 following extracts will show. 



Lyell writes, hi the Antiquity of Man (p. 

 203): 



"Mingled with the bones of mastodon, 

 megalonyx, equus, and others, the pelvic 

 bone of a man was obtained. It appeared 

 to be in the same state of preservation and 

 was of the same black color as the others, 

 and was believed to have come like them 

 from a depth of about thirty feet from the 

 surface." 



"In my Second Visit to America in 

 1846 I suggested, as a possible explanation 

 of this association of a human bone with re- 

 mains of a mastodon and megalonyx, that 



the former may possibly have been derived 

 from the vegetable soil at the top of the 

 cliff, whereas the remains of the extinct 

 mammalia were dislodged from a lower posi- 

 tion, and both may have fallen into the same 

 heap or talus at the bottom of the ravine. 

 Had the bone belonged to any recent mam- 

 mifer other than man, such a theory would 

 never have been resorted to." 



Lyell's very words in the original work 

 read thus : " I could not ascertain that the 

 human pelvis had been actually dug out in 

 the presence of a geologist or any practiced 

 observer, and its position unequivocally as- 

 certained. Like most of the other fossils, it 

 was, I believe, picked up in the bed of the 

 stream, which would simply imply that it had 

 been washed out of the cliffs. But the evi- 

 dence of the antiquity of the bone depends 

 entirely on the part of the precipice from 

 which it was derived. It was stained black, 

 as if buried hi a peaty or vegetable soil, and 

 may have been dislodged from some old In- 

 dian grave near its top, in which case it may 

 have been only five, ten, or twenty centuries 

 old ; whereas if it was really found in situ at 

 the base of the precipice, its age would more 

 probably exceed a hundred thousand years." 

 (Second Visit, chap, xxxi.) 



The wide discrepancy between the lan- 

 guage of Lyell and its interpretation by Major 

 Powell is obvious. There is absolutely no 

 justification for the assertion that Lyell " at 

 once assigned the bone. to the talus." He 

 evidently resorted to this possible explana- 

 tion to avoid what was in 1846 a yet more 

 formidable difficulty the admission of the 

 great antiquity of man. Lyell's so-called 

 evidence must therefore be thrown out of 

 court. His decision on the point is purely 

 fictitious, and the statement that " all geolo- 

 gists and archaeologists have accepted it " is 

 merely a fiction based on a fiction. 



But the criticism must not in justice end 

 even here. It is not fair in so rapidly ad- 

 vancing a science as geology to quote the 

 words even of a leader published nearly fifty 

 years ago, without any intimation that he 

 afterward changed his opinion. Lyell was a 

 man who grew with the times in which he 

 h'ved. The palaeoliths from the gravels at 

 Amiens were cardinal evidence to him, and 

 supported as they then were by similar 

 though less conclusive testimony from other 

 places^ they worked his conversion to the 

 doctrine of the great antiquity of the human 

 race, a belief in which he never afterward 

 wavered. His belief found a place hi his 

 writings. He revised or even recanted his 

 former opinions wherever he thought them 

 erroneous, and his great work, The Antiquity 

 of Man, is at once a monument of his can- 

 dor and of his progress. Had Major Powell 

 taken the trouble to consult this volume, 

 with which we must suppose that he is fa- 

 miliar, he would scarcely have dared so com- 

 pletely to misrepresent its author as he has 

 done." He has laid himself open to at least 



