Wright.] 432 [Dec. 21, 



The substance of these remarks had been previously made by 

 me in a meeting of this Society for March 7, 1883, and reported in 

 Science, vol. i, pp. 269-271. Commenting upon this report, Dr. 

 Abbott sent a communication to Science from which the following 

 extracts are very significant and interesting as connected with our 

 discussion this evening (see Science, vol. i, p. 359) : — 



"In Science of April 13, p. 271, Professor Wright remarks that 

 4 no palaeolithic implements have as yet been found [in Ohio], but 

 they may be confidently looked for.' It has seemed to me possible, 

 from my own studies of the remains of palaeolithic man in the 

 valley of the Delaware River, that traces of his presence may only 

 be found in those river-valleys which lead directly to the Atlantic 

 coast, and that palaeolithic man was essentially a coast-ranger, and 

 not a dweller in the interior of the continent. If we associate 

 these early people with the seal and walrus rather than with the 

 reindeer, and consider them essentially hunters of these amphibious 

 mammals rather than of the latter, it is not incredible, I submit, 

 that they did not wander so far inland as Ohio, nor even so far as 

 the eastern slope of the Alleghanies ; and we need not be sur- 

 prised if palaeolithic implements, concerning which there can be 

 no doubt whatever, — for recent Indians made and used stone imple- 

 ments that are 'palaeolithic' in character, — are not found in Ohio, 

 nor even in Pennsylvania west of the valley of the Susquehanna 

 River." 



"On the other hand, if the relationship of palaeolithic man and 

 the Eskimo is not problematical, and the latter is of American 

 origin, then I submit that man was preglacial in America, was 

 driven southward b}^ the extension of the ice-sheet, and probably 

 voluntarily retreated with it to more northern regions ; and, if so, 

 then in Ohio true palaeolithic implements will surely be found, and 

 evidences of man's preglacial age will ultimately be found in the 

 once glaciated areas of our continent." 



The expectation of finding evidence of preglacial man in Ohio 

 has at length been met. 



At the meeting of this Society 1 for November 4, 1885, "Mr. Put- 

 nam showed an implement chipped from a pebble of black flint, 

 found by Dr. C. L. Metz in gravel, eight feet below the surface, in 

 Madisonville, Ohio. This rude implement is about the same size 



i See Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. xxm, p. 242. 



