ANCIENT INDIAN MATTING. 675 



With a foot-note thus: 



It is very positively stated that mastodon bones were found considerably above 

 some of the human relics. In a detrital mass, however, this can not be considered a 

 crucial test. 



The discovery or finding of this piece of matting by Mr. Cleu in the 

 position indicated, to wit, above the rock-salt, but beneath the fossil 

 bones, tusks, etc., of the elephant or mastodon may be conceded. There 

 seems to have been nothing strange or suspicious in such a discovery. 

 But finding it in the detrital mass, as reported by Professor Hilgard, 

 robs it of all weight as evidence of the antiquity of man. The surface 

 or top of the solid body of rock-salt appears to have been somewhat 

 irregular, to have conformed generally to the surface of the earth above 

 it, to have been at a depth of about 15 feet, to have been principally 

 under the line of high-tide water, though at one place it appeared above. 

 The island is quite small, nearly round, with an area of 2,240 acres, and 

 dotted over with hills, the highest being 180 feet. From this descrip- 

 tion it can be easily understood, as Professor Hilgard says, that a 

 "detrital material was washed down from surrounding hills and fre- 

 quently inclosing the vestiges of both animal and human visits to the 

 spot." Mr. Cleu says that many more of these pieces of matting will 

 be found, etc. 



In the light of these examinations the position of this matting is ex- 

 plained, and we see that it has no bearing upon the question of the 

 antiquity of man. The same claim would apply with equal propriety 

 to the buftalo, deer, and other bones, to the Indian hatchets and arrow- 

 heads, and to the incredible quantity of pottery fragments found by 

 Professor Hilgard. These, together with the matting and the fossil 

 mastodon bones and tusks, have all been washed down from the sur- 

 rounding hills and swept back and forth, in no one knows how many 

 relative changes of position, by each recurring tide. The matting being 

 found under the mastodon fossils in the detrital mass is no evidence 

 that this was their original position or that the deposition of both may 

 not have belonged entirely to modern times. 



