276 /A T AUTUMN. 



from palaeolithic man ; in other words, that with 

 the disappearance of glacial conditions in the 

 Delaware Valley, and the retirement northward 

 of the continental ice-sheet, if such there were, 

 the people of that distant day followed in its 

 tracks, and lived the same life their ancestors 

 had lived when northern New Jersey was as 

 bleak as is Greenland to-day ; but that not all of 

 this strange people were so enamored of an arctic 

 life, and that many remained and, with the 

 gradual amelioration of the climate, their de- 

 scendants changed in their habits so far as to 

 meet the requirements of a temperate climate. 

 This explanation, it seems to me, best accords 

 with known facts. 



It is fitting, after a long tramp in search of 

 human relics or remains, still so abundantly 

 scattered over and through the superficial soil, to 

 halt, at the day's close, upon the river's bank, 

 and rest upon one of the huge ice-transported 

 bowlders that reach above the sod. From such 

 a point I can mark the boundary of the latest 

 phenomenon of the valley's geological history, 

 and seem to see what time the walrus and the 

 seal sported in the river's icy waters ; what time 

 the mastodon, the reindeer, and the bison ten- 

 anted the pine forests that clad the river's banks ; 

 and what time an almost primitive man, stealing 

 through the primeval forests, surprised and capt- 



