ARE THERE EVIDENCES OF MAN IN THE DRIFT? 3 zi 



in very great numbers and collected in various museums in the 

 United States, and many collections were sent abroad to the great 

 museums of the world. Several different collectors engaged in 

 this enterprise for some years, and acquired great reputation 

 for their proof of the antiquity of man on this continent, and for 

 their zeal in discovering the evidence ; and to recompense them 

 for this work they were made members of many scientific societies 

 throughout the world, and decorated with ribbons, and some were 

 knighted. Geologists, however, held the question more or less in 

 abeyance, not feeling sure of the geological evidence for the age 

 of the formations in which the supposed stone implements were 

 found. Then other discoveries were made in Minnesota and else- 

 where; and finally geologists, with some misgivings and many 

 ifs and perchances, accepted the conclusion that Glacial man in 

 America was a reality. 



But now the problem of these formations had to be studied 

 geologically in making the map of the United States, for they had 

 to be represented thereon. They were soon found to be of dif- 

 ferent ages, but had been confused by reason of the overplacement 

 which is so abundant everywhere. At the same time a new class 

 of archseologic investigations began. The first new work of the 

 character was undertaken in the neighborhood of Washington, on 

 Piny Branch. It had been discovered that the gravels of this 

 locality were of Cretaceous age, and if the flaked stones supposed 

 to be found therein were really deposited in situ, then man in 

 America was not only of Glacial age but of Cretaceous age, for the 

 very same class of implements which the Indians made two cen- 

 turies ago in the valley of the Potomac were also supposed to be 

 found in the Cretaceous gravels as well as in the gravels of the 

 Glacial epoch. Thereupon Mr. Holmes, of the Bureau of Ethnol- 

 ogy in the Smithsonian Institution — not a member of the Geo- 

 logical Survey — undertook the investigation, and he commenced 

 by trenching the hills, and worked patiently for months at the 

 problem. He proved that all the supposed stone implements be- 

 longed, not in the foundation rocks of Cretaceous age, but in the 

 overplacement. Man, then, was not of Cretaceous age. While 

 these investigations were in progress the American Association 

 and the International Geologic Congress met in Washington, and 

 many of the scientific men visited the ground. Most of the as- 

 sistants of the Geological Survey visited it, and other geologists, 

 attracted by the problem, came to Washington for the purpose ; 

 so that the whole field was surveyed and the evidence weighed by 

 very many of the geologists of the country and of the world, and 

 they all agreed that the stone implements belonged to the over- 

 placement, and might possibly have been deposited within the last 

 three hundred years. 



VOL. XLIII. 22 



