November ii, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



271 



Now, as a matter of fact, a considerable number of just such 

 forms have been found in the gravel deposits at Trenton, N.J. , 

 and at a significant depth ; but, says the geologist, what of the 

 age of this deposit? The whole question hinges on this. Pro- 

 fessor Salisbury asserts that since the deposit was originally laid 

 down, it has been reasserted. Grant this, and what then? If the 

 reassortment took place in "Indian" times, how does it happen 

 that only this one form and simple Hakes are found entombed? 

 Holmes here steps in and says '• easy enough," the Indian went 

 to the river-shore, chipped pebbles, and retired to the back coun- 

 try, leaving his " rejects." But are we to suppose the Indian 

 never went to the water's edge for any other purpose ? Did he 

 not take his finished implements to the river to fish and hunt? 

 Did he not cross the river by a raft, canoe, or by swimming? Did 

 he necessarily always live back from the stream ? Common sense 

 points out that he must have had the whole range of his goods 

 and chattels continually at and on the water, and are we to sup- 

 pose that never a knife, arrow-point, bead, or pot was lost? It is 

 too absurd to consider; and this reassortment of the gravel-beds 

 must have buried a great deal more than "rejects.'' Again, it 

 has been asserted that the assumed pateolithic implements are 

 only in '• talus." Carvill Lewis, according to Brinton, says what 

 I held to be undisturbed layers, were really an "ancient talus." 

 Possibly, but how ancient? In at least a dozen instances this as- 

 serted "old talus" was caused by floods having a transporting 

 power equal to piling up layers alternately of sand and gravel, 

 and then, as if to anticipate the present tempest in a tea-pot, 

 placed a bowlder, weighing tons, over it all, for fear that the poor 

 palsBolith might run away. Now, when grooved axes and polished 

 celts are found under like conditions, I am willing to leave the 

 field as fast as my short legs will permit, and not before. 



Professor Salisbury has asserted that there is need of expert 

 testimony to determine the precise age of the implement bearing 

 gravels, and Dr. Brinton insists that no opinion as to the geological 

 age of a gravel can be received from any but an expert geologist. 

 Grant it; but the trouble is these "expert geologists" are rarce 

 aves that were never yet known to agree among themselves, and 

 it becomes a mere matter of personal opinion after all. I lay 

 claim to a smattering of gravel-ology. I have lived on pebbles 

 so long that I have become flinty-hearted so far as criticism is 

 concerned, and when I find gravel stratified and unstratifled, I 

 know and assert the difl'erence; aad when a pateolithic imple- 

 ment is found in gravel beneath layers of sand and pebbles, be- 

 neath huge bowlders (not merely at a lower horizon, but directly 

 beneath them), I do not, and no reasonable person should want 

 another to tell him that the two were laid down together, or the 

 big bowlder was dropped upon the implement, which anticipated 

 its coming. Up pops some "authority" and declaims the possi- 

 bility that the ground was washed from beneath the big stone and 

 the implement slipped in. Well, we can go on supposing till the 

 crack o'doom, but as to proof, that is another matter. These 

 geological jugglers will prove yet that the Indians bought the 

 Delaware Valley from William Penn. 



Certainly too much value is put on this matter of expert testi- 

 mony. Then, again, in spite of all that has been written and 

 said, the assertion is made that palaeolithic implements are found 

 only at the present river-shore. Of course we find them there 

 now, because the gravel is exposed, but not there alone. A full 

 mile back from the river they have been found in dijging cellars, 

 sinking wells, and in the cut of the Pennsylvania Railroad, east of 

 Trenton, N.J. All this area may have been " reasserted." but in 

 such delicate fashion that the strata are not broken, and it sug- 

 gests that the manner of it was like turning over a book from one 

 cover to the other. 



Again, it has been objected that no animal remains have been 

 found; but Cook found a mastodon, and I have, more significant 

 yet, a valve of a Unio; and what of human remains, long since 

 reported? There are, too, at the Peabody Museum, three human 

 crania, two of which were taken from the gravel and one found 

 in the bed of a creek, and these three, identical in character, stand 

 alone in a collection of nearly three thousand Indian crania. 



It is the weak point of Wright's book that he did not prepare 

 the archcBological portion at the Peabody Museum, with my col- 



lection under his eyes. It he had, the critics would hot have 

 had a leg to stand upon. 



The implements, too, speak for themselves. If "rejects" as 

 Holmes dogmatically asserts, why is it that they were carried to 

 the high ground, and are found to-dav, solitary and alone, silent 

 witnesses of that long ago, when it was the principal weapon of 

 the early man who used them? And if " rejects," made at the 

 water's edge, where are the chips resulting from their fashion- 

 ing? They are not scattered broadside over the river-shore as 

 are the implements; but we do find in spots where "rejects" 

 were made in numbers, and know the fact because of the accu- 

 mulated chips. It is easy to conceive a theory and bend the facts 

 to it; very, very easy; but the trick is found out, sooner or later. 



" But they show no sign of use" pipes some impatient kicker. 

 Prove it; and does the spear or arrow point show signs of use? 

 Of over a thousand chipped jasper scrapers in the Abbott collec- 

 tion at the Peabody Museum, not a half-dozen show sign of use, 

 and the same may be said of drills. 



These rude implements are made of argillite, and the use of 

 this material was continued down to the time of European con- 

 tact, being less and less used after the discovery of jasper. The 

 magnificent results of Mr. Ernst Volk's explorations, under the 

 direction of Putnam, in the valley of the Delaware, clearly prove 

 this, and so substantiate what I have claimed for all these years; 

 and is it notsigniticant that some of the most finished specimens 

 of palaeolithic implements have been found in situ 1 By what 

 authority do the critics say they are too rude to be effective ? Is 

 any person living so in touch with primitive man to-day as to 

 assert what he could and could not have used ? It is well to bear 

 in mind that many an undoubted Indian implement, just as rude, 

 was used by these later people. Look at the rude spades and 

 slightly chipped but girdled pebbles that were used as club-heads. 



Of course in the days of paleeolithic implement-making there 

 would be " rejects," and the critic must not attempt to prove too 

 much, because such are found, even in undisturbed gravel. Many 

 a pebble, too, has been chipped until suggestive of an implement, 

 by the detaching of fiakes to be used as knives, as Mercer pointed 

 out at the Rochester meeting of the A. A. A. S., and a splinter of 

 stone was not too elaborate an implement for supposed palaeolithic 

 man to have used. 



And now, in conclusion, let us remember that the native 

 American — the Indian — is a type distinct from all other peo- 

 ples ; let us not forget; that their languages are all a purely home 

 product, and that these facts show undeniably a necessarily long 

 occupancy of this continent, shut out for centuries from all the 

 world. If he. as a fully equipped Indian, came from another re- 

 gion beyond the seas, his similarity to the people of that region 

 could be traced. As it is, he came, so far as our knowledge now 

 extends, when man over the whole world was not racially devel- 

 oped as now, an I so, when in a comparatively primitive condi- 

 tion; such a condition as is suggested by the simplest of imple- 

 ments, whether for the chase or domestic uses. Here, in North 

 America, this early man became a potter, invented the bow, and 

 gradually reached that status of culture, differing in degree in 

 different parts of the country, in which he was found by Euro- 

 pean explorers. 



As a student of archaeology. I submit that this occupancy of 

 the continent commenced when there was a changing condition 

 of the river valleys in progress; but whether that change was 

 subsequent to the glacial epoch or during it, deponent saith not. 

 That it was during a time when rook-transporting floots were 

 common. I do claim. That it was wben ruder than ordinary 

 Inuian implements were tlie common tools of the people. I do 

 claim, for how else could only such I'ude forms be associated as 

 they have been shown to be with gravels that show no evidence 

 of disturbance except such as forces not now in operation, ef- 

 fected ? It is true, palaeolithic and Indian objects are now asso- 

 ciated, but they are also separate and apart. What I contend 

 for is the sequence of events of the original use of a rude weapon 

 or tool, the one implement of that day that was manufactured, 

 and. as time rolled on, the production of more elaborate forms. 

 and all that pertains, the world over, to the accepted neolithic 

 stage of human advancement. 



