GLACIAL MAN h\ THE TRENTON GRAVELS. 27 



percentage of our talus deposits have been formed well within 

 the historic period. 



At Trenton the constantly exposed gravel banks afforded 

 considerable argillite in bowlders, fragments and heavy masses, 

 as well as some other flakable stones of infertor quality little 

 used, and it is inevitable that the Indfan who dwelt upon the 

 shores of the river should have sought the workable pieces 

 along the bluff, leaving the refuse everywhere ; and it is a nec- 

 essary consequence that the terrace margin, the bluff face, and 

 the talus deposits, places little fitted for habitation, should for 

 long distances contain no trace of any art shapes save such as 

 pertain to manufacture. Thus are fully and satisfactorily 

 accounted for all the turtle backs and other rude forms that our 

 paleolith hunters have been so assiduously gathering. Nothing 

 can be more fully apparent than that no other race than the 

 Indian in his historic character and condition need be conjured 

 up to reasonably account for every phase and every article of 

 the recovered art. Mistaken interpretations of the nature of 

 shop rejects, and the common association of these objects with 

 redistributed gravels, are probably accountable for the many 

 misconceptions that have arisen. Talus deposits form exceed- 

 ingly treacherous records for the would-be chronologist. They 

 are the reef upon which more than one paleolithic adventurer 

 has been wrecked. 



Relics of art attributed to gravel man have been collected, 

 so far as I can gather from museum labels and from incidental 

 references in various publications, from a number of sites aside 

 from the two already referred to. These are scattered over the 

 city, and the finds were made mostly in exposures of the gravels 

 that remained visible for a short time only, as in street and 

 cellar excavations and well pits. These reported finds can never 

 be brought within the range of re -examination, and the searcher 

 after unimpeachable testimony must content himself with plac- 

 ing them in the doubtful column on general principles. Urban 

 districts are so subject to disturbance through cutting down of 

 hills, filling in of depressions, grading of streets, digging of 



