1896.] Anthropology. 609 
_ America; warrants the supposition, that in the subterranean floor 
deposits of the new world, the problematic existence of Plistocene 
Man might be soonest and easiest demonstrated, while with hardly 
less ground we may urge as valuable testimony in the American 
region the absence of such remains in significant underground shelters. 
Not unreasonably such absence, occurring invariably at these immem- 
orial halting places of men and animals, might indicate that Plistocene 
Man had never existed in the adjacent regions. 
By this course of reasoning and investigation the University of Penn- 
sylvania has sought to solve definitely the question first to.attract and 
last to puzzle American students—How long has Man existed in the 
New World? Striving to limit the speculations of archeologists, the 
work has proceeded by degrees to reconcile with geology their study of 
pre-Columbian peoples, which, fascinating as it is, has lacked thus far 
subdivisions, landmarks and starting point, while an effort to eliminate, 
through the investigation of significant caves, one region after another 
from the field of search, has sought to narrow the area of possible 
discovery from the point of view explained. Having shown on the 
one hand that certain caverns like the fissure at Port Kennedy, (right 
bank of Schuylkill River, 3 miles below mouth of Perkiomen Creek, 
Montgomery County, Penna.,) containing in large quantity the remains 
of Plistocene animals without relics of Man, are geologically ancient, 
on the other hand, a fact of much significance has been demonstrated 
for the first time, namely, that a considerable number of other caves 
are modern, since their floors, well supplied with the refuse of Indians 
and later White Men, below which remains of geologically older 
peoples would not have been lacking in Europe, have failed to reveal 
any relic of Plistocene Man. 
In these several instances the geologically modern remains (human) 
and the geologically ancient remains (animal) have lain apart in dis- 
tinct caves, and hence less ayailably for comparative study, but the 
recent expedition in Tennessee, resulting in the examination of three 
caves in which the old and new deposits lay in juxtaposition, has 
enabled us to push the question farthur by studying the relation between 
the ancient and modern strata where, at their point of contact, it was 
most significant. 
More broken and scattered even than at the remarkable tomb of 
extinct animals at Port Kennedy, were the remains of the Tapir, Pec- 
cary, Bear and smaller Mammalia at Zirkel’s Cave, (left bank of 
Dumpling Creek, about 5 miles above its mouth in French Broad 
42 
