572 INTER-GLACIAL AMERICAN MAN. 



from a distance, may they not be referred to an early race that, driven 

 southward by the encroaching ice, dwelt at the foot of the glacier, 

 and during their sojourn here these implements were lost 1 " The 

 assumption, it is manifest, is thus far based on imperfect, if not con- 

 flicting, evidence, which must be greatly augmented and carefully 

 weighed in all its bearings. Nor need we wonder at the uncertainty 

 manifested as to this discovery of a glacial, inter-glacial, or post-glacial 

 man of America, when it is remembered that the result of the Con- 

 ference on the Antiquity of Man, held recently by the Anthropolo- 

 gical Institute of Great Britain, was on the whole either to throw 

 discredit on the reputed cases of the occurrence of palseolithic remains 

 in deposits older than the post-glacial ; or to suggest that the river 

 gravels containing palaeolithic implements originated in their present 

 condition at a later period than the glaciation of the districts in 

 which they occur. Authorities of the highest character among the 

 geologists and archaeologists of Great Britain are at least equally 

 divided on the subject ; and the result of the Conference is, — if not 

 absolutely to discredit the supposed evidence of palaeolithic man, 

 either in the caves or the river deposits of England older than post- 

 glacial : — at least to demand much more conclusive evidence than any 

 which has yet been adduced, before it can be accepted as a scientific 

 fact that man existed in southern England and in France prior to 

 the great ice age which wrought such enormous changes on the whole 

 contour of Northern and Central Europe. 



Professor Shaler purposely deals mainly with the geological aspect 

 of the question, cautiously guarding his statements in reference to 

 the age of " the speciTaaens of supposed implements." He constructs 

 a hypothesis at the close, " on the assu.mption that these pebbles owe 

 their foi'm to forces that antedate the dej)osition of the beds in which 

 they are found." Thus — Cleaving to archaeological experts to deter- 

 mine the artificial origin of the " supposed implements" found along 

 the escarpments and imbedded in the drift of the Delaware Valley, — 

 he arrives at the conclusion, that from its miscellaneous matel-ials 

 " pebbles of a peculiar composition were selected;" and after referring 

 to evidences of a later change on the drift materials in which they 

 lie, which lead him to the conclusion " that the pebbles were chipped 

 before the waste which constitutes the mass was brought into its 

 present position," he thus sums up : . " If these remains are really 

 those of man, they prove the existence of inter-glacial man on this 

 part of our shore." 



