EDITORIAL 637 
the prospect that we may be able to bring him face to face with 
his responsibilities at a fixed day of fulfillment, though his dates 
are inconveniently distant. A prophecy which definitely courts 
atest of its accuracy by giving dates and amounts has a grateful 
moral flavor. The prospect of honor for fulfillment and punish- 
ment for failure is equitably distributed. Writing from this 
doomed locality we cannot lay claim to that indifference to results 
which is the prerequisite of complete impartiality in weighing 
the merits of the prophecy, but we have this comforting alterna- 
tive that whatever the outcome we shall be able either to rejoice 
in the triumph of a friend or else join in the laugh of our neigh- 
bors at his failure. 
* 
OnE of the features of especial interest at the Detroit meet- 
ing was the joint session of the anthropological and geological 
sections for the discussion of the relics of man found on the Dela- 
ware at Trenton, N. J., participated in by Putnam, Knapp, Kim- 
mel, Wright, Holmes, Mercer, Wilson and Salisbury. Previous 
to the meeting all of these participants had visited the ground 
where excavation under the direction of Professor Putnam has 
been for some time in progress, and were thus armed with fresh 
facts from personal observation. The good influence of the 
“higher criticism’ was manifest in the great care obviously taken 
in making and presenting the observations and in the critical and 
cautious attitudes assumed in their interpretation. The discus- 
sion was an altogether admirable one and formed an important 
episode in the progress of anthropic geology in this country. 
The discussion was essentially confined to the interpretation of a 
surface bed of sand three or four feet thick embracing scattered 
pebbles and irregular seams of ferruginous and silty materials, and 
of the artifacts found in it. This superficial bed rests upon the 
glacial gravels and lies on the brink of the terrace which overlooks 
the Delaware bottoms. The geological discussion centered upon 
the origin of this sandy deposit. The majority opinion and the 
weight of evidence seemed on the whole to favor a wind origin. 
No substantial evidence that it was of glacial or glacio-fluvial 
