FOWKE] THE LANSING SKELETON 481 
Several angular fragments of limestone rock, none of them over 3 
or 4 ounces in weight, occurred at various levels in the loess, from the 
floor to the roof; snail shells were not rare; some charcoal; but no 
trace of bone, human or other, was discovered, nor anything of an 
artificial character. As forest fires frequently originate independ- 
ently of human agency, charcoal in such situations may be dis- 
regarded. Some of the pieces found here showed granular surfaces 
and clean, sharp-cut edges, as though they had never been subjected 
to the wear and tear of either atmospheric or aqueous erosion. 
Near the end of chamber C the bedrock abruptly ended and its 
place was taken by a confused mass of broken rocks, shale, and clay, 
with no definite line of separation between it and the superimposed 
loess. This proved to rest, at a depth of 16 inches, on another strat- 
um of solid rock. When the part within the chamber was cleared 
cut it was plain that this material filled an old watercourse. The 
bedrock, which had formed the floor thus far, was about 4 inches 
thick; under it was a foot of undisturbed stratified shale, resting on 
another, much heavier, stratum of limestone. The margin, or bank, 
was irregular, as in any small stream. The farther side was not 
reached in this chamber. An effort was made to ascertain its course 
toward the north by running a tunnel, D, in that direction, but after 
wheeling out the overlying loess (all excavated material had to be 
transported to a considerable distance outside of the entrance to the 
main tunnel) and then digging through 13 feet of conglomerate 
almost as solid as masonry, without finding anything else, the attempt 
was abandoned. 
So far, the work had been altogether underground. The roof of 
the excavations was nowhere less than 12 feet, vertically, below the 
surface. The loess had been of the same general nature wherever 
exposed; but this fact could not be relied on as a sure indication that 
it was homogeneous throughout. For the purpose of obtaining 
satisfactory evidence as to its character from top to bottom, a 
trench 4 feet in width was begun at the roadway in the ravine west 
of the tunnel and extended, on the bedrock as a base, to connect with 
the west end of chamber C, as indicated by the letter E in the 
diagram. 
There was no mark on either wall of this trench, of slipping, slid- 
ing, caving, or surface wash from a higher level; no lines of lamina- 
tion or stratification; no indication of interrupted deposition of the 
loess; in short, no evidence whatever that the whole formation as 
here exposed was due to any other cause than a slow, steady, con- 
tinuous sedimentation in quiet water. The loess rested on the bed- 
rock throughout, except for a few loose stones here and there on 
the bottom. Among these, near the middle point of the trench, was 
