298 The American Naturalist. [March, 
ARCHEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 
The Contention of Mr. J. D. McGuire that stone polishing 
must be and is as old as stone chipping, and that we have no evidence 
of a time when man did not know how to polish stone and make pot- 
tery, induced me when in Europe last summer (1894) to ask several 
explorers of caves and drift beds in Italy, England and Germany, 
whether, like Mr. McGuire, they had come to suspect the presence of 
pottery or polished stone in these oldest human culture layers. 
Professor Dr. Johannes Ranke, of Munich, has been kind enough to 
send me the following very interesting series of notes upon the subject, 
and I hereby print them subjoined to my questions (in italics) as ori- 
ginally propounded to him.—H. C. Mercer. 
The Results of Cave Exploration in Germany.—I. Have 
you found proof in German (Austria-Hungary, ete.) caves, of a time 
when man was in a Paleolithic state—chipped but could not polish 
stone—and make pottery ? 
Ans. My observations and investigations of prehistoric man are 
given in full in my book “ Der Mensch,” Vol. II, (II edition, 1894, 
Leipzig, Sibleoz Institute), where answers to all your questions may 
be found. 
Further, I would say, that the objects found in one layer of a cave 
are only in very rare cases proved to be contemporaneous, for exam- 
ple, the case of the celebrated excavations of Dr. Niicsch, Schaffhausen, 
Switzerland, in “ Schweizerbild,” (1. Der Mensch, II, p. 454); in other 
caves many objects of different epochs, some even modern, are found 
in the same layer. It ison these grounds that I can give no complete 
proof regarding the cave finds in the district referred to by you, Aus- 
tria-Hungary, Germany, Switzerland. 
On the contrary, we have in Germany, Austria-Hungary, places of 
discovery, not properly caves, in undisturbed diluvial layers, in which 
objecis found in one layer are entirely proved to be of contemporary 
date. The place of discovery near Schaffhausen is not a veritable 
cave, but a shelter under over-hanging rocks, where a layer has been 
found, layer No. 4, with many remains of the reindeer period, cave bear, 
diluvial horse, ete. No polished, but only chipped stone; no pottery, 
no dog. The place of discovery by Saubach offered undisturbed 
1 This department is edited by H. C. Mercer, University of Pennsylvania. 
