assumed that humans had carried these stones to the site and threw them 
at the beast. As additional evidence, Koch unearthed several stone pro- 
jectile points, a stone spearhead or knife, and some stone axes on the 
site. >? 
In a later issue of the Transactions, Friedreich Wislizenus refuted 
Koch’s claim that homo sapiens had lived as a contemporary of the 
mastodon. Wislizenus concluded that Koch’s find could not be used to 
support the hypothesis that the mastodon, which Wislizenus referred 
to as an “‘antediluvian animal,’’ had coexisted with humans nor with 
any “‘intelligent apes.’’*? Nathaniel Holmes, the lawyer, supported 
Koch’s theory. At a meeting of the Academy, the New Englander de- 
fended Koch and cited several scientists whose work suggested that in 
all probability man had existed as a contemporary of the mastodon.*4 
Science has since proven that human beings did live at the time 
of the mastodon in North America and probably preyed on them, but 
the Koch-Wislizenus-Holmes debate involved deeper issues.?5 Wislizenus 
favored a conservative approach to interpreting the evidence. He ap- 
parently believed that Koch’s fossils dated from before Noah’s flood, 
which was a view founded in the conventional wisdom of the early nine- 
teenth century. Holmes and Koch, in contrast, discounted the deluge 
theory and seemed inclined to accept radical ideas.2° The debate 
demonstrated the rift that separated those who believed in the traditional, 
creationist interpretations of the fossil record and those who espoused 
newer theories. 
Although the Academy printed papers on local and regional sub- 
jects, many Transactions offerings through the first twenty-five years 
reported on work being done in the Far West by the Army Corps of 
Topographical Engineers. In the two decades before the Civil War, John 
C. Fremont and other military explorers undertook grand surveys of 
the topographical and natural history of the West. They concentrated 
on developing a national definition of the West, locating the best routes 
for future immigration, and compiling an inventory of the region’s natural 
resources. The information accumulated by the Army was widely used 
by the government to promote settlement and by railroad companies 
to plan the Transcontinental Railroad and other lines. 
Academy members studied the scientific data the Corps provided 
them and examined the specimens the Corps collected. In the first volume 
of the Transactions, members published sixteen articles that described 
hundreds of newly discovered fossils gathered by scientists working 
with the Corps. Hiram Prout, for example, wrote four lengthy papers 
on Bryozoa specimens collected by geologists who accompanied Cap- 
peer i on a survey expedition to Texas and New Mexico in 
a, 7 
24 
