INVESTIGA TION , VERSUS PROPAGANDISM 3 1 7 



No place was discovered from which the included bones and teeth might 

 have been washed in, nor do they in general have the appearance of transported 

 fossils. These bony remains are in what may be regarded as a normal condi- 

 tion; as when, in a little valley furnishing food and drink and shade, herbivo- 

 rous and carnivorous species had resorted and perished there for thousands of 

 years. In a normal way their bones have almost all fallen into dust. Some, 

 buried under somewhat favorable conditions, endured longer, but softened 

 and were trampled into fragments by succeeding generations of elephants, 

 mastodons, horses, bisons, huge ground sloths, and smaller forms. Only the 

 most favored and protected bones and teeth have endured to the present, 

 mostly scattered, but sometimes remaining associated with others of the 

 same skeleton.' 



Dr. Hay regarded the lower part, at least, of No. 3 as also Pleis- 

 tocene. 



This deposit is somewhat more difficult to work for fossils, but it has 

 furnished almost all the forms that are found in No. 2. It is not improbable 

 that some bones and teeth were redeposited from the lower stratum, but 

 not, I think, any considerable or essential portion of them.^ 



In the Ninth Annual Report of the FloHda Geological Survey,^ 

 Dr. Hay treats more fully the vertebrate remains from the beds in 

 question, mostly those of the upper layer, and reaffirms his belief 

 not only that the fossils represent an early or middle Pleistocene 

 fauna, but that the deposits in which they are now embedded are 

 early and middle Pleistocene in age also.'' 



Dr. Robert W. Shufeldt described the fossil bird bones but does 

 not discuss their bearing on the age of the deposits further than 

 to indicate that some of the species are extinct. ^ 



Contribution from the standpoint of paleobotany. — ^In his report 

 on the fossil plants. Dr. Edward W. Berry says that "plant 

 remains in the form of laminae of impure peat or scattered fruits, 

 chiefly acorns, are present from the bottom to the top of the 

 deposits overlying the shell marl which forms the base of the sec- 

 tion. The lower sands (designated No. 2 by Sellards) have yielded 



'Symposium i, Jour. Geol., XXV (1917), 52. 



^Ibid. t 3 Pp. 43-68. 



* Ninth Annual RepL, Florida Geol. Survey, p. 67. 



5 Symposium 1, Jour. Geol., XXV (191 7), 18-19; Ninth Annual RepL, Florida 

 Geol. Survey, 191 7, pp. 35-42. 



