ARE THERE EVIDENCES OF MAN IN THE DRIFT? 325 



unconsolidated superficial deposits of the earth; and it is only 

 where there is collateral evidence that such testimony is accept- 

 able to the cautious student. Now, the sediments of Lake Lahon- 

 tan are generally, and in Walker River canon almost wholly, 

 unconsolidated, and so the probabilities are against the verity of 

 the association." * 



When Prof. Wright's second book, Man and the Glacial Period, 

 appeared, the subject was one of popular interest, and it was 

 thought that the book would do harm. Thereupon his fellow- 

 workers criticised the book in various scientific journals, and 

 sometimes spoke very disparagingly of it, as being unworthy of 

 acceptance — all intended to warn the public against a book widely 

 advertised and circulated as the greatest contribution that had 

 ever been made to glacial geology. The fact that in support of 

 his pretensions the author, Prof. Wright, signed his name as a 

 member of the United States Geological Survey, was especially 

 offensive to the others who had been engaged under the auspices 

 of the survey, whether as volunteers, professorial assistants, or 

 permanent employees. 



When Prof. Wright found his book thus attacked, he skill- 

 fully evaded the real issue — the truth or error of his conclusions 

 — and he or certain of his personal friends raised the cry of per- 

 secution by the official geologists of the United States. Most of 

 those who criticised him were professorial geologists, like him- 

 self, who had aided the Geological Survey with their work. Prof. 

 Wright was thus attacking his fellow-workers in the field, not 

 deigning to make scientific reply to scientific objections, but 

 making only general statements in relation thereto, and turning 

 the issue on the right of geologists to criticise his work, which 

 he assumed was not official, though he had placed his name on 

 his book with an official title. 



All this required no reply from me, until at last Mr. Wright 

 enlisted the championship of The Popular Science Monthly. An 

 article by Mr. Claypole, of Ohio, was published in the April num- 

 ber of the journal, making a bitter attack upon the professorial 

 geologists and upon the regular employees of the United States 

 Geological Survey, and in no covert way attacking the admin- 

 istration of the survey itself. This attack, based as it was on 

 error in every paragraph, would still have called for no response 

 from myself, but would have been passed by, had not the editor 

 of the journal attempted to draw a lesson therefrom in con- 

 demnation of the work of the Geological Survey and of that of 

 the professorial geologists and volunteer assistants connected 

 with the universities, colleges, and State surveys of the entire 



* American Anthropologist, vol. ii, 1889, pp. 301-312. 



