370 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1215 



A lighter toucli is given to this somewhat 

 weighty subject — a connecting link with more 

 transcendent things — by the text which ap- 

 pears in the upper comer of the page of pref- 

 ace. This is taken from Deuteronomy 

 XXXII. 31, and reads as follows : — 



Tor their rock is not as our rock, even our ene- 

 mies themselves being the judges. 



Certainly if the opponents of the Quantitative 

 Classification have visited upon them the fate 

 set forth as awaiting their representatives in 

 the context of this passage from the Song of 

 Moses, the Quantitative Classification of 

 igneous rocks will be firmly established for all 

 generations. Frank D. Adams 



McGiLL TJniversitt, 



A REVIEW OF SOME PAPERS ON 

 FOSSIL MAN AT VERO, FLORIDA 



In the number of the American Anthropolo- 

 gist for the first quarter of 1918 the writer is 

 publishing a paper which deals with the dis- 

 covery of Pleistocene man in North America. 

 In that paper notice is taken of the literature 

 which had appeared up to the time of writing 

 it on the finding of hiunan remains at Vero, 

 Florida. Since then other articles on the 

 subject have appeared, and I feel constrained 

 to review briefiy some of them. One of these 

 papers is the ofiicial account of Dr. Hrdlicka.^ 

 The gist of this account is found in these 

 words : 



The only satisfactory explanation of the condi- 

 tions can he found in the assumption that the re- 

 mains are those of intentional burials. 



!N"aturally, this means satisfactory to the 

 writer of the report; for six other men have 

 furnished explanations on the same subject, 

 each apparently satisfactory to its author, and 

 all differing much from that of Dr. Hrdlicka. 

 At least three of those sis men are experts 

 in the solution of geological problems, but 

 not one of the six sustains Dr. Hrdlicka in 

 his theory of intentional burial. Meanwhile 

 he hardly attempts to remove the difficulties 

 which beset his assumption. His method may 

 be defined as the easy one of solution by fiat. 

 lEep. Sec. Smithson. Inst, for 1917, p. 10. 



Three papers on the same subject appear in 

 the Journal of Geology for October-Novem- 

 ber, 1917. They are the outcome of a week's 

 collaboration and consultation at Vero on the 

 part of Drs. E. H. Sellards, E. T. Chamberlin, 

 and E. W. Berry. No comment is here made 

 on Sellards's paper; for, so far as SeUards 

 has expressed himself, the present writer is 

 in accord with his views. 



Dr. Berry's paper deals especially with the 

 fossil plants found in the muck bed; but he 

 discusses other important matters. He con- 

 cludes that the muck deposit and, of course, 

 the stratum of sand beneath it, belong un- 

 doubtedly to the Pleistocene; that the human 

 remains were not buried intentionally; and 

 that man lived there contemporaneously with 

 the extinct vertebrates. He generously ex- 

 cuses Dr. Chamberlin's theory of the in-wash 

 of the fossil bones and Dr. Hrdlicka's theory 

 of intentional burial on the ground that the 

 age of the extinct vertebrate fauna had been 

 overestimated. It is to be regretted if these 

 experienced men were constrained to resort 

 to desperate measures in order to save their 

 anthropological theory. 



It seems to the writer that Berry assumes to 

 be true too many debatable matters. He says 

 that the shell marl which underlies the other 

 beds at Yero is late Pleistocene in age; and 

 he bases this statement on the asserted fact 

 that its species all now exist in near-by 

 waters. Mansfield's list of mollusks^ does not 

 exactly support this statement. There are 

 more than a dozen species about which there 

 is doubt of one kind or another. Further- 

 more, if the molluscan faima were not es- 

 sentially that of Recent seas the beds would 

 have to be assigned to the Tertiary. 



Again, Berry takes it for granted that the 

 lowest and youngest terrace, the Pensacola, is 

 of late Pleistocene age; but this view lacks 

 confirmation. This terrace is supposed to con- 

 tinue northward into the Talbot of Maryland 

 and thence into the Cape May of New Jersey. 

 The present writer is not inclined to question 

 the conclusion of Salisbury and Knapp that 

 the Cape May was coincident with the Wis- 



2 Ninth Ann. Eep. Fla. Geol. Surv., p. 78. 



