1881 .] 
125 
[Abbott. 
Report of the Peabody Museum, that “ they closely resemble the 
celts of the drift period of Europe, especially those found at St. 
Acheul, two or three of which, except for their material, could 
hardly be distinguished from them.” 
In April, 1873 — also in the American Naturalist — I again 
called attention to these rude implements, and while realizing that 
they were certainly older , did not ascribe to them other than an 
Indian origin, but did see in them, as I believed, evidence that the 
Indian was in a palaeolithic stage of culture when he reached our 
shores ; thus classing these objects with the ordinary relics of the 
surface. 
At this time, also, I gave a detailed description of three speci- 
mens of chipped pebbles, which had been picked up, at different 
times, while in search of mineralogical specimens; for at that 
time, I never imagined that any traces of Man would occur at 
other than unimportant depths from the surface. One of these 
chipped pebbles was found at a depth of sixteen feet ; another four 
feet from the surface. As it did not appear possible for these to 
have reached these depths by natural means, I was led to remark 
that these were even older than surface-found rude implements, 
and that “we must admit the antiquity of American man to be 
greater than the advent of the so-called Indian ; i. e., supposing 
the latter to be a comparatively recent comer to the Atlantic 
coast.” 
The discovery of these first suggested to me that there might 
be a commingling of two classes of stone implements upon the 
surface, which had diverse origins, and this came the more forci- 
bly to my mind, as I had already noticed and remarked, that in 
the gravel that has only the cultivated soil above it very 
many of the rude implements have occurred — indeed the great 
majority had been found in the loose gravels, wherever exposed. 
Thus it will be seen, that from the first, while the character of 
these implements was recognized, their whole significance had 
not been, except in the case of two specimens (the third prob- 
ably being a natural form), and these were considered at the time 
as apparently indicative of what has since been demonstrated. 
In January, 1877, the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution for 1875 was published. This contained a more extensive 
