Abbott.] 104 [October 18, 



material. While in workmanship they exhibit a marked advance 

 over the palaeolithic implements, they are so uniform in charac- 

 ter and so inferior in finish as compared with the unquestioned 

 handiwork of the Indian, that I venture to assign them to an 

 earlier date. But it is their position in undisturbed soils that 

 best demonstrates this fact. 



I will not here dwell upon other facts that add to the strength 

 of the proposition that these argillite spears are not of recent 

 Indian origin. Let it suffice, for the present, to say that they are 

 absent from the workshop sites, where jasper and quartz solely 

 were used ; and no workshop sites have been discovered where it 

 exclusively was used. Should such be found, I should expect to 

 find evidences of age greater than any indications of antiquity 

 attaching to such sites as I have found as yet. 



These rude argillite spear-heads are all greatly weathered — 

 yet the mineral is not one that readily yields to atmospheric in- 

 fluences. Yet now, as you see by breaking them, they are quite 

 rotten. 



Finally, if we examine the alluvial deposits along the river, 

 which constitute the tract of meadow that intervenes between 

 the bluff or terrace formed in part by the gravel and the river, 

 we will find that here too, the position characteristic of these 

 argillite spears in the uplands, obtains. I have made many sec- 

 tions of this deposit — a stiff, black, sandy loam — and found that 

 near its base, and less frequently as we near the surface, these 

 spear-points occur, while the reverse is true of the jasper and 

 quartz weapons of the Indians. From these considerations, thus 

 imperfectly set forth, I am led to conclude that these specimens 

 may be accepted as traces of a people intermediate between that 

 of palaeolithic man and of the Indian of historic times. 



The relationship borne by this intermediate people to those 

 that preceeded and those that followed, is a vexed question ; but 

 taking into consideration the prominent fact that these spear- 

 points are of argillite, are rudely fashioned, and evidently, as 

 shown by their position in the ground, of great antiquity — I am 

 disposed to class them as the handiwork of the direct, post-glacial 

 descendents of palaeolithic man ; possibly, they were the ances- 

 tors of the historic Indian ; but more probably they were Eskimos. 



