Reviews 



Kakabikansing. By J. V. Brower. St. Paul, Minn.: H. L. 

 Collins & Co. 



Under this bizarre title Mr. Brower has described the occurrence 

 of quartz chippings at Little Falls, Minn., prefixing a sketch of the 

 previous studies of Winchell, Babbitt, Upham, Hill, Holmes, and 

 Hershey, and affixing a letter from Professor Winchell and a state- 

 ment on "Primitive Man in the Ice Age" by Mr. Warren Upham. 

 The descriptions of Mr. Brower are apparently careful and candid, so 

 far as intention goes, but they are obviously not those of a critical 

 geological observer. They neglect most of the really discriminative 

 factors and embrace much inconsequential matter. Notably also they 

 have the trait, so common to the untrained worker, of incorporating 

 interpretation unconsciously while insisting on " ascertained facts." 

 " The glacial river " plays a notable part in the description of the 

 formations, whereas the very thing to be demonstrated is the " glacial" 

 or non-glacial character of the river at the time the formations in 

 question were made. None the less the excellent photographs and the 

 maps, together with the statement of Professor Winchell, largely sup- 

 ply the lacking data and make it possible to consider whether the 

 interpretations put upon them are the normal ones or not. 



From these it appears that there overspreads the plain once occu- 

 pied by the Mississippi waters, but now above their reach, a surface 

 layer of dirty pebbly sand of the typical structureless kind which 

 usually covers abandoned flood plains of sand and gravel. This is 

 about four feet thick and at places near the river contains many chips 

 of white vein quartz of undoubted human origin. The source of the 

 quartz is unquestionably the veins in the outcropping slate over which 

 the falls are formed. This quartz- bearing slate does not now rise as 

 high as the upper surface of the plain, and this fact has been urged by 

 Holmes and Hershey as evidence that the quartz chippings were not 

 taken from the parent ledge until the plain had been cut down to the 

 requisite depth after its original completion. Mr. Brower, while not 

 answering this objection by positive evidence, holds that the crest of 

 the quartz-bearing ledge was exposed at seasons of low water, though 



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