CHAPTER VIII. 



RELICS OF MAN IN THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



In Glacial Terraces of the United States. 



Although the first clear evidence of glacial man was 

 discovered in Europe, the problem is so much simpler on 

 the Western Continent that we shall find it profitable to 

 study the American facts first. We will therefore present 

 a summary of them at once, and then proceed to the more 

 obscure problems of European archaeology. 



The first definite discovery of human relics clearly con- 

 nected with, glacial deposits in America, and of the same 

 age with them, was made by Dr. C. C. Abbott, at Trenton, 

 IN". J., in the year 1875. The city of Trenton is built upon 

 a delta terrace about three miles wide which occurs at the 

 head of tide-water on the Delaware River. This terrace 

 bears every mark of having been deposited by a torrential 

 stream which came down the valley during the closing pe- 

 riod of the great Ice age. The material of which the ter- 

 race consists is all water-worn. According to the descrip- 

 tion of Professor N. S. Shaler : 



" The general structure of the mass is neither that of 

 ordinary boulder-clay nor of stratified gravels, such as are 

 formed by the complete rearrangement by water of the 

 elements of simple drift-deposits. It is made up of boul- 

 ders, pebbles, and sand, varying in size from masses con- 

 taining one hundred cubic feet or more to the finest sand 

 of the ordinary sea-beaches. There is little trace of true 

 clay in the deposit; there is rarely enough to give the 



