November 14, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



451 



cause of his qualifications he ought, if nec- 

 essary, to seek such a place, and that an 

 organization of naturalists ought to definitely 

 consider ways and means of extending its 

 influence as far as possible. 



This is a day of propaganda. The un- 

 worthy type will prevail if it is not overridden 

 or displaced by the worthy type. Any and 

 every learned society is under constructive 

 obligation to do what it can in such a cause, 

 but we must always remember the danger of 

 attempting anything of the sort without first 

 eliminating all traces of pedantry. 



W. E. Allen 



ScRipps Institution, 

 La Jolla, Calif. 



CHARLES CONRAD ABBOTT AND 

 ERNEST VOLKi 



The recent death of Dr. C. C. Abbott and 

 Mr. Ernest Yolk^ of Trenton, New Jersey, 

 removes two investigators whose work must 

 always occupy a prominent place in attempts 

 to estimate the conditions and chronology of 

 prehistoric man. ISTot long after the dis- 

 covery of palaeolithic implements in northern 

 France and southern England establishing 

 the existence of man in Europe before the 

 close of the Glacial period. Dr. Abbott began 

 reporting the discovery of implements of 

 similar type in the gravel deposits of glacial 

 age upon which the city of Trenton is built. 

 The first report of his discoveries was made 

 to the Smithsonian Institution in 1875. Be- 

 tween 1875 and 1888 he had found sixty such 

 specimens in the undisturbed gravel at va- 

 rious depths, some of which were as much as 

 twenty-two feet from the surface. 



As a resident of Treriinn, Mr. Volk's at- 

 tention was naturally called to Dr. Abbott's 

 discoveries at the outset; but it was not until 

 the fall of 1889 that he began systematic 

 work, under the direction of Professor 

 Putnam, for the Peabody Museum of Har- 

 vard University. His services continued for 



1 A notice of Dr. Abbott 's death was given in 

 Science, September 12. Mr. Volk was badly in- 

 jured in an automobile accident on September 15 

 and died without recovering consciousness, two 

 days afterwards. 



twenty-two years. The result of his long ex- 

 ploration of the Trenton gravels was pub- 

 lished in 1911, in Volume V. of the Papers 

 of the Peabody Museum of American Ar- 

 cheology and Ethnology. The report proper 

 fills 258 octavo pages, which summarizes his 

 journals from 1889 to 1905, and after that 

 gives his journal in full, in which every day's 

 work is carefully recorded. This fills one 

 hundred pages. There are one hundred and 

 twenty-five photographic illustrations. 



In 1880, I was requested by Professor 

 Putnam and Asa Gray to visit Trenton in 

 the interests of the Peabody Museum, to 

 shed what light I could upon the character 

 of the gravel deposits in which palaeolithic 

 implements had been found by Dr. Abbott. 

 This I did in company with Professor Boyd 

 Dawkins, of England, who was then in 

 Boston giving a course of Lowell Institute 

 lectures, and Professor Henry W. Haynes, 

 who had made collections from all the fields 

 in Europe and in Egypt where palseolithic 

 implements are found, and with Mr. H. 

 Carvill Lewis, a glacialist of the highest 

 reputation, who afterwards was joined with 

 me in the survey of the terminal moraine 

 across the state for the Pennsylvania Geo- 

 logical Survey; and whose report on the 

 Trenton gravels published as an appendix to 

 Abbott's " Primitive Industry " establishes 

 beyond question the late glacial age of the 

 deposit. Since then I have visited the region 

 almost every year and some years several 

 times, and at two different times spent days 

 together with a committee appointed by the 

 A. A. A. S. to make explorations. It is there- 

 fore proper that I should speak in defense 

 of the discoveries, especially of Dr. Abbott 

 and Mr. Volk in view of the fact that per- 

 sistent attempts have been made to discredit 

 them. 



The chief reason for doubting the accuracy 

 of these observations appears to have been 

 that while Dr. Abbott and Mr. Volk had 

 made so many discoveries, hardly anybody 

 else has made any. But to this objection it 

 is sufficient to say that Dr. Abbott and Mr. 

 Volk have had a thousand opportunities to 

 make discoveries where other investigators 



