1882. 103 [Abbott. 



do occur, and in the greatest abundance. While they have been 

 generally classed with Indian relics, and by some held to be the 

 connecting link, binding the palaeolithic implements and later 

 Indian handiwork as the work of one people ; I am equally con- 

 fident that, in truth, they indicate the true palaeolithic age of the 

 gravel implements most forcibly, and are not of Indian origin. 



I know of but one way of determining such a question, and this 

 is by careful examination of deep sections of the gravel deposits 

 and of the overlying soil. We have seen that the railroad has 

 afforded a magnificent opportunity for examining a section. 

 Besides this it happens that a short distance from Trenton, 

 these gravels rest upon clays of much value. These are exten- 

 sively mined, and the necessary removal of the overlying gravel 

 has afforded numerous opportunities for examining the soil above 

 the gravel as well as that deposit itself. Taking an average from 

 a large number of these sections, I find that there is a deposit of 

 sand of about two feet above the gravel. In many places there 

 is scarcely six inches remaining, and elsewhere the sand is 

 several feet in depth, before gravel is met with ; but the depth I 

 have mentioned, two feet, is a fair average. The uppermost 

 six inches, or perhaps a little more, of this sand is of a dark color, 

 and largely charged with vegetable matter is, in fact, the soil 

 proper. In this black soil, if I may so call it, and not often below 

 it, the relics of the Indians of historic times occur in the greatest 

 abundance. These may be described as consisting of finely 

 wrought jasper and quartz arrow and spear-heads, and polished 

 stone implements. Associated with them is an abundance of 

 fragments of pottery. It not unfrequently occurs, that in a sec- 

 tion made at some clay pit, in the surface soil, relics like these 

 will be found, and below them, but with an intervening stratum 

 of sand two or three feet in thickness, will be found one or more 

 palaeolithic implements. When the two classes of objects are 

 thus seen in situ, with the intervening space containing no trace 

 of man, the greater antiquity of the more deeply buried objects 

 is, at once, apparent ; and thenceforth all doubt upon the subject 

 vanishes. 



But in many localities there is a variation from this, in that the 

 sand that separates the gravel and the surface soil is an imple- 

 ment bearing one, these objects being of a uniform type and 



