November ii, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



275 



■valuesas they are commonly considered to be. As, for example, the 

 amount of the changes in the length of a chain under the influences 

 of changing temperatures is related to the length of the chain, so 

 we should expect the variability in the growth of large organisms 

 to be on a larger scale than in small ones. There are more 

 cells affected simultaneously by the same environing conditions. 

 The rationale of a connection between the variability and the 

 median may in some cases admit of being clearly made out, and 

 in all cases it deserves more thought than it has hitherto received. 



AN ARC BIOLOGIC A.L DELUSION. 



BY THOMAS BOEDON KING. 



The daily papers have lately published accounts of a new 

 ■"serpent'' efiSgy. It existed in southern Ohio, in Warren 

 County, and, according to two doctors of the neighborhood, 

 measured some nineteen hundred feet in length. It was said to 

 surpass the famous Adams County serpent. 



Professor Putnam's assistant, Mr. H. I. Smith, spent some time 

 surveying the structure, this summer. He trenched the embank- 



ment in several places and searched the neighboring fields for 

 traces of a village site. The accompanying rough outline gives an 

 idea of the ' ' serpent " so far as it can be traced. In the corn- 

 field it will be seen that the embankment cannot be distinguished; 

 in the woods it is plain. The part in the woods, which at present 

 is some two feet in height, does not appear to be serpentine in 

 character. It is almost unnecessary to add that if the remaining 

 part of the structure does not represent a serpent, the obliterated 

 portion never did. There is not the slightest grounds for the 

 assumption that this figure in any way resembles the Adams 

 County effigy. The latter is laid out in graceful curves, which 

 suggest the character of the effigy. The embankments of the 

 Warren County structure resemble those of Fort Ancient. The 

 long straight line -4, and the sharp, squared bends B and C are 

 the exact counterpart (although much smaller) of certain parts of 

 south Fort Ancient. 



Alive snake could not take the form of this •' new serpent " with- 

 out breaking his back in three places. (I write under the impres- 

 sion that aborigines imitate living and not dead animals). There 

 is a slight moat at the base of the embankment, which, although 

 nearly tilled, can still be traced. To one who has seen all the shell, 

 bone, stone, and clay representatives of serpents and serpent- 

 symbols displayed in the museums of this country, the "new 

 serpent" does pot appear serpentine. I cannot see how the angular 



corners B and C and the moat D, and the embankment A, mark 

 other than parts of a peculiar defensive earthwork. 



The primitive Americans in drawing, moulding, building, or 

 sculpturing snakes evinced a certain similarity of idea in design, 

 and employed a common mode of execution. Yet this "new 

 serpent " has nothing in common with other serpents ! (Read 

 Holmes on '' Art in Shell."') As this new serpent is such a poor 

 representative that Professor Putnam and other competent judges 

 dare not place themselves on record in naming it, I have no hesi- 

 tancy in calling it a rude fortification. The native Americans 

 were sufficiently competent to execute a figure with such distinct- 

 ness and closeness of rese ublance as would allow of no dispute. 

 Those who are interested in following the discussion further will 

 please compare the diagram submitted with Squier and Davis's 

 plan of the Adams County effigy. There are many similar com- 

 bination works in the Ohio Valley, and it is probable that the 

 thorough exploration of several might furnish evidence as to the 

 purpose for which they were erected. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 Man and the Glacial Period. 



I ACKNOWLEDGE with pleasure the courtesy with which Dr. 

 Brinton, in his review of " Man and the Glacial Period," has 

 dealt with the question of the genuineness of the reported discov- 

 eries of implements in the glacial gravels of the United Slates. 

 This, of course, was the first question to be settled, Were imple- 

 ments of human manufacture really found in undisturbed strata 

 of gravel which was deposited during the glacial period ? If 

 this question is settled in the affirmative, then all glacial geology 

 has direct bearing upon the question of archa?ology. If it is de- 

 cided in the negative, glacial geology remains the same, but it 

 ceases to have interest in connection with archjeology. I am 

 glad to have the issue so clearly made by Dr. Brinton, and thereby 

 to have occasion to present more specifically my reasons for be- 

 lief in the genuineness of these discoveries. 



The evidence naturally begins with that at Trenton, N. J., 

 where Dr. C. C. Abbott has been so long at work. Dr. Abbott, 

 it is true, is not a professional geologist, but his familiarity with 

 the gravel at Trenton where he resides, the exceptional oppor- 

 tunities afforded to him for investigation, and the frequent visits 

 of geologists have made him an expert whose opinion is of the 

 highest value upon the question of the undisturbed character of 

 the gravel deposit. The gravel ban^ which he has examined so 

 long and so carefully have been exposed in two ways: 1st. by the 

 undermining of floods on the river side, but principally by the 

 excavations which have been made by the railroad and by private 

 parties in search of gravel. For years the railroads have been at 

 work digging away the side of the banks until they had removed 

 a great many acres of the gravel to a depth of twenty or twenty- 

 five feet. Anyone can see that in such conditions there has been 

 no chance for "creep" or landslides to have disturbed the strati- 

 fication; for the whole area was full of gravel, and there was no 

 chance of disturbance by natural causes. Now Dr. Abbott's tes- 

 timony is that up to the year 1888 sixty of the four hundred palseo- 

 lithic implements which he had found at Trenton had been found 

 at recorded depths in the gravel. Coming down to specifications, 

 he describes in his reports the discovery of one (see •' Primitive 

 Industry," 493) found while watching the progress of an exten- 

 sive excavation in Centre Street, which was nearly seven feet 

 below the surface, surrounded by a mass of large cobble-stones 

 and boulders, one of the latter overlying it. Another was found 

 at the bluff at Trenton, in a narrow gorge where the material 

 forming the sides of the chasm had not been displaced, under a 

 large boulder nine feet below the surface (ib. 496). Another was 

 found in a perpendicular exposure of the bluff immediately after 

 the detachment of a large mass of material, and in a surface that 

 had but the day before been exposed, and had not yet beirun to 

 crumble. The specimen was twenty-one feet from the surface of 

 the ground. 



In all these and numerous other cases Dr. Abbott's attention 

 was specially directed to the question of the undisturbed char- 



