774 T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



indicated, the case is not so declared as to render a sriven inter- 

 pretation wholly certain, and to absolutely exclude all others. 

 While I think them quite improbable, other times and methods 

 of burial may be entertained as within the bare limits of possi- 

 bility. 



i ) As noted in the description, there are some small and obscure 

 shoulders or terraces at different heights up to sixty feet above 

 the upper flood plain of the Missouri river. It is not clear that 

 the higher of these are anything but degradational inequalities of 

 structural origin, but it may be worth while to recognize that 

 these features may possibly be of fluvial origin, and may be 

 genetically connected with the lower deposit containing the 

 human relics, though there is no clear evidence of this. In this 

 case the working level of the river must be placed at perhaps 

 sixty feet above that of the present day, and its waters must be 

 supposed to have invaded the mouth of the valley more exten- 

 sively and deeply. The site of the relics is thus placed in the 

 bottom of the ancient river, though not in its main channel. It 

 was therefore, more or less subject to the scouring action of 

 the river bottom, and to alternate deposition and removal, as set 

 forth in the preliminary considerations. At any stage during 

 such submersion, when the current of the river was directed 

 against the mouth of the tributary, it would be theoretically 

 possible for the pre-existing deposit to be scoured out and 

 replaced in the manner so constantly illustrated by the present 

 action of the river, and in connection with such removal and 

 refilling, the relics could be introduced. This would place the 

 time of their burial farther back, but probably not so far as even 

 the latest stage of the last ice invasion. 



The specific character of the deposit does not seem to me to 

 lend support to this interpretation. It is not distinctly and 

 specifically fluvial, as it might be expected to be if formed in the 

 bottom of the river or in deep and constant water of any kind, 

 It bears the aspect of a mixed combination product, such as 

 postulated in the previous interpretation. 



2) It may be held that the relics were buried in the early 

 stages of the Wisconsin glaciation, when the Missouri river was 



