Abbott.] 426 [Dec. 21, 



of North America in strictly glacial times, and yet many objec- 

 tions are still urged against this view. 



One of these is that the so-called "implements" are too rude and 

 indefinite in design to have been available for all of even primitive 

 man's few wants, and yet nothing more elaborate of a different pat- 

 tern is referred to the same age and origin. May not, it is asked, 

 these "broken stones" be natural objects? The character of the 

 fractures clearly proves that they are not. It is inconceivable that, 

 in every case, the detached portions of a naturally broken stone 

 should bear such relations to each other, that an effective cutting 

 edge or penetrating point should result. 



As Mr. McGee has pointed out, there was a wide tract of habit- 

 able land adjoining the area now covered by the Trenton gravels ; 

 and certainly there is no inherent improbability in the suggestion 

 that a proportion of the ruder forms of stone implements found up- 

 on the surface of the Columbia gravel may not be properly refera- 

 ble to the palaeolithic folk rather than to the Indians that succeeded 

 them. It is clearly evident that the typical palaeolithic implements 

 were weapons used in hunting, and as such would be used about the 

 river where the greater portion of the game would be. Hunting 

 implements would be liable to be lost ; while the simple domestic 

 implements, mostly used by the women in the preparation of food 

 and clothing, would seldom, if ever, be carried to the river. As 

 at present, we find a large range of objects of Indian manufacture 

 confined to spots that give not only by their presence, but by 

 other evidence, proof that such localities were village sites ; while 

 arrowheads and spearpoints are distributed over the whole coun- 

 try. So we find the single weapon of the older people in the 

 gravels that once formed the river's bed, and very sparingly else- 

 where ; while equally rude objects — ordinarily classed as Indian 

 relics — are sometimes found under conditions which strongly sug- 

 gest that they were used by another and an earlier people ; in other 

 words, are contemporaneous with the objects found buried in the 

 gravel. 



There is unquestionably much to be done before every objection, 

 that may fairly be urged, is met and answered ; but the results so 

 far obtained all point in the one direction, that of the existence 

 of man in the Delaware Valley, when the "Trenton gravels" were 

 being deposited. 



