Putnam.] 
158 
[Dec. 19, 
Bearing upon this question, it must be remembered that we nave 
one palaeolithic implement found, four feet from the surface, in the 
older gravel upon which the Trenton rests, at Trenton, New Jersey. 
This specimen was sent to the Peabod} 7 Museum by Dr. Abbott’s son 
Richard, and I have brought it here for your examination. 
The results of Dr. Abbott’s investigation of the river-bed in the 
vicinity of Morris Island, below Trenton, which he has given us to- 
night, are of special interest, as they show that the stone imple- 
ments, once buried by the Trenton gravel, have since been washed 
out of the gravel by the action of the river, and are now found 
upon its bed associated with other water- worn stones. Two of these 
water-worn implements are before you for examination and com- 
parison with others taken from the gravel. 
Mr. Cresson’s discovery of a chipped-flint implement of large 
size (fig. 3), in place in the gravel of White river, Indiana, is 
another important fact in relation to the distribution of early man in 
America. Professor Wright has shown to us this evening, by a 
series of instructive lantern pictures, the continuity of this gravel 
deposit in Indiana with that of New Jersey, from which about four 
hundred implements have been taken by Dr. Abbott, and that of 
Ohio, from which we have two implements found by Dr. Metz. 
Referring to Mr. £resson’s examination of the rock-shelter in 
Delaware, we have before us a series of objects taken from the 
several layers of the shelter, which give us a chronology of the ut- 
most importance, as each period of occupation of the shelter was fol- 
lowed by a natural deposition, separating the different periods of 
occupation. The stone implements upon this tablet were taken from 
the lowest la 3 7 er, indicating the earliest period of occupation of the 
rock-shelter ; and, as you will see, they correspond in shape and 
rudeness of execution with those taken from the gravel-bed at 
Trenton, and like most of the latter, they are all of argillite, These 
specimens from the second period are of argillite, and while many 
are chipped into slender points, they are still of very rude forms ; 
and these in turn correspond with the argillite points found by Dr. 
Abbott deep down in the black soil, or resting upon the gravel, at 
Trenton. In the upper la} T ers of the shelter, we observe, as on this 
tablet, the gradual introduction of implements chipped from jasper 
and quartz, and corresponding in form with those found upon the 
surface throughout the valley. And as a further indication of this 
later development, it was only in the upper layers that pottery, bone 
