ANTIQUITY 



61 



ing post-Glacial time, but under discrimi- 

 nating observation may be expected to 

 furnish valuable data to the chronologist. 

 The river terraces at Trenton, N. J. , for ex- 

 ample, formed largely of gravel accumu- 

 lated at the period when the southern 

 margin of the ice sheet was retreating 

 'northward beyond the Delaware valley, 

 have been the subject of careful and pro- 

 longed investigation. At the points wliere 

 traces of man have been reportetl the sec- 

 tion of these deposits shows generally be- 

 neath the soil a few feet of superhcial 

 sands of uncertain age, ]iassing down 

 rather abruptly into a more or less uni- 

 form dejjosit of coarse gravel that reaches 

 in places a depth of 30 feet or more. 

 On and near the surface are found vil- 

 lage sites and other traces of occupancy 

 by the Indian tribes. Beneath the soil, 

 extending throughout the sand layers, 

 strme imiilements and the refuse of 

 implement-making oi-cur; but the testi- 

 mony of these finds can have little value 

 in chronology, since the age of the de- 

 posits inclosing them remains in doubt. 

 From the Glacial gravels proper there 

 has been recovered a single object to 

 which weight as evidence of human pres- 

 ence during their accumulation is at- 

 tached; this is a tulmlar Ixtne, regarded 

 as part of a human fenuir ami said to 

 show glacial stria:' and traces of human 

 workmanship, found at a depth of H J feet. 

 On this object the claim for the (ilacial 

 antiquity of man in the Delaware valley 

 and on the Atlantic slope practically rests 

 (Putnam, Mercer, Wright, Abbott, Hrd- 

 licka, Holmes). Other finds e. of the 

 AUeghenies lackiyg scientific verification 

 furnish no reliable index of time. In 

 a post-Glacial terrace on the s. shore 

 of Lake Ontario the remains of a hearth 

 were discovered at a de])th of 22 feet 

 by Mr Tomlinson in digging a well, ap- 

 parently indicating early aboriginal oc- 

 cupancy of the 8t Lawrence basin (Gil- 

 bert). From the Glacial or immediately 

 post-Glacial deposits of Ohio a number 

 of articles of human workmanship have 

 been reported: A grooved ax from a 

 well 22 feet beneath the surface, near 

 New London (Claypole); a chipped ob- 

 ject of waster type at Newcomerstown, 

 at a depth of 16 feet in Glacial gravels 

 (Wright, Holmes); chipped stones in 

 gravels, one at Madisonville at a depth of 

 8 feet, and another at Lovelanil at a depth 

 of 30 feet (Metz, Putnam, Wright, 

 Holmes). At Little Falls, Minn., flood- 

 plain deposits of sand and gravel are 

 found to contain many artificial objects of 

 quartz. This flood plain is believed by 

 some to have been finally abandoned by 

 the Mississippi well ])ack toward the close 

 of the Glacial ])crio(l in the valley 

 (Ilrowcr, Winchcll, Upliam), but that 



these finds warrant definite conclusions 

 as to time is seriously questioned by 

 Chamberlin. In a Missouri r. bench near 

 Lansing, Kans., portions of a human 

 skeleton were recently found at a depth 

 of 20 feet, but geologists are not agreed 

 as to the age of the formation (see Lan- 

 sing Miin). At Clayton, Mo., in a de- 

 jiosit believed to belong to the loess, at a 

 depth of 14 feet, a well-finished grooved 

 ax was found (Peterson). In the Basin 

 Range region between the Rocky mts. and 

 the i^ierras, two discoveries that seem to 

 bear on the antiquity of human occupancy 

 have been reported: In a silt deposit in 

 Walker r. valley, Nev., believed to be of 

 Glacial age, an obsidian implement was 

 oljtained at a depth of 25 feet (McGee); 

 at Nampa, Idaho, a clay image is reported 

 to have been brought uj) by a sand pump 

 from a depth of 320 feet in alternating 

 beds of clay and quicksand underlying a 

 lava flow, of late Tertiary or early Glacial 

 age (Wright, Emmons; see Nainpa Im- 

 age) . Questions are raised by a number 

 of geologists respecting the value of these 

 finds (McGee). The most extraordinary 

 discoveries of human remains in connec- 

 tion with geological formations are those 

 from the auriferous gravels of California 

 (Whitney, Holmes). Tliese finds are nu- 

 merous and are reported from many local- 

 ities and from deposits covering a wide 

 range of time. So convincing did the evi- 

 dence appear to Whitney, state geologist 

 of California from I860 to 1874, that he 

 accepted without hesitation the conclu-^ 

 sion that man had occupied the auriferous 

 gravel region during pre-Glacial time, and 

 other students of the subject still regard 

 the testimony as convincing; but consid- 

 eration of the extraordinary nature of the 

 conclusions dependent on this evidence 

 should cause even the most sanguine ad- 

 vocate of great human antiquity in Amer- 

 ica to hesitate (see Calaveras Man). Geolo- 

 gists are practically agreed that the grav- 

 elsfrom which someat least of therelics of 

 man are said to come are of Tertiary age. 

 These relics represent a polished-stone 

 culture corresponding closely to that of 

 the modern tribes of the Pacific slope. 

 Thus, man in America must have passed 

 through the savage and well into the 

 barbarous stage while the hypothetical 

 earliest representative of the human race 

 in the Old World, PifheninfJiropns erertux 

 of Dubois, was still running wild in the 

 forests of Java, a half- regenerate Simian. 

 Furthermore, the acceptance of the aurif- 

 erous-gravel testimony makes it necessary 

 to place the i)resence of man in America 

 far back toward the beginning of the Ter- 

 tiary age, a period to be reckoned not in 

 tens but in hundi-eds of thousands of 

 years. (See Smithson. iie}i. for 1S99. ) 

 Tlu'se and other c(|ually striking consid- 



