INTER-GLACIAL AMERICAN MAN. ' 571 



who still claims to represent the aborigines of the New World, to 

 tlie ruder savage of that primeval dawn when the ice age of our 

 northern hemisphere had only begun to contract its sway over the 

 northern continent. 



The theory at which Dr. Abbott has thus far arrived may be 

 thus indicated. Towards the close of the great ice age, the locality 

 which has thus rewarded his search for specimens of palaeolithic art 

 marked the termination of the glacier on the Atlantic coast. Here, 

 at the foot of the glacier, a primitive people, in a condition closely 

 analogous to that of the Esquimaux of the present day, made their 

 home, and wandered over the open sea in its vicinity, during the 

 accumulation of this deposit from their melting glacier in the bed of 

 the neighbouring ocean. But the drift gravel thus deposited has been 

 modified by 'subsequent action. According to Dr. Abbott's conclu- 

 sions, this glacial debris was deposited in open water, on the bed of a 

 shallow sea. But while it is indisputably originally of glacial origin, 

 it appears to have been subjected to subsequent modifications which 

 niaterially affect the question of the post-glacial or inter-glacial charac- 

 ter of the supposed evidences of art included in it. The disposition 

 of the large boulders, and the absence of true clay in the mass, both 

 suggest that it has undergone great changes since its original deposi- 

 tion as glacial debris. Both Professors Shaler and Pumpelly remark 

 on the absence of ice scratches on the pebbles and boulders ; and if 

 this is to be accounted for by subsequent action of water, the included 

 chijiped implements prove by their unpolished surfaces that they ai'e 

 of more recent origin. Huge boulders, of the same character as those 

 which abound in the underlying gravel, also occur on the surface. 

 Their presence there is referred to by Dr. Abbott as throwing light 

 upon " the occurrence of rude implements identical with those found 

 in the underlying gravels, inasmuch as the same ice-raft that bore 

 the one, with its accompanying sand and gravel, might well gather 

 up also stray I'elics of this primitive people, and re- deposit them 

 where they are now found." Accordingly, seeking in fancy to recall 

 this ancient past, he says : " In times preceding the formation of 

 this gravel bed, now in part facing the Delaware River, there were 

 doubtless localities, once the village sites of pre-glacial man, where 

 these rude stone implements would necessarily be abundant. . 

 But assuming that the various implements fashioned by a strictly 

 pre-glacial people have been totally destroyed by the crushing forces 

 of the glacier, and that the specimens now produced were not brought 



