116 J. W. DAWSON — SOME RECENT DISCUSSIONS IN GEOLOGY. 



the occurrence of postglacial or palanthropic men in America, as distin- 

 guished from the modern American Indian, and, if so, whether any 

 geologic evidence exists of his having shared in the diluvial catastrophe 

 so destructive to his old-world confreres. 



The collections now being accumulated by Putnam in the Peabody 

 Museum at Cambridge, will do something toward settling these questions, 

 if properly aided by the work of geologists in the field, and it would be a 

 triumph for American science to remove them from the doubt and diffi- 

 culty which now surrounds them ; but the geologist, rather than the 

 archeologist, must assume the responsibility of establishing the true age 

 and sequence of the deposits. 



I began with the statement that our goal today will be our starting- 

 point tomorrow, and have endeavored to attract your attention to a few 

 of the questions which are being agitated today. What tomorrow may 

 bring forth it remains for my successors to tell. I may conclude with 

 thanking you for the honor you have done me in placing me in this 

 presidential chair, and by expressing my sincere good wishes for the 

 prosjDerity and usefulness of the Geological Society of America. 



