[January, 
^8 Discovery of Stone Implements in 
that Dr. Abbott liberally presented to me, to our greatest 
authority on stone implements, Dr. John Evans, and he 
considers they are different from the palaeolithic type in 
Europe, and more resemble some of the ruder neolithic im- 
plements from Ireland. It is surprising that palaeolithic 
implements from distant parts of the Old World resemble 
each other so closely, and it would have been more wonderful 
if those from America had been fashioned to the same type. 
Most of these implements are from the high bluff facing 
the Delaware, near Trenton ; some from other localities in 
the same valley. Amongst them is one which Dr. Abbott 
picked out himself from the face of a railway-cutting through 
a boulder deposit at Butzville, 50 miles north of Trenton. 
It is made from a flattened pebble, by one end being chipped 
to a cutting edge, the other being left in its natural rounded 
condition. Both on the rounded portion of this specimen 
and on the chipped part are what appear to be glacial 
scratches. Dr. Abbott informed me that nearly every stone 
in this deposit was covered with glacial striae, and Professor 
Smock afterwards told me that the formation had been 
recognised by the Geological Survey as part of the terminal 
moraine of the great ice-sheet. I felt no doubt when I 
examined this specimen that it had been fashioned by man, 
but Dr. Abbott has since informed me that others to whom 
he has shown it think that it is barely possible that it may 
be of natural formation. I fully expefffc that it will be 
authenticated by further discoveries, but in the meantime it 
may be well not to base any theories upon it. I noticed 
small scratches upon some of Dr. Abbott’s other specimens, 
and he kindly presented one to me showing these on 
one side. As I shall have to explain further on, the glacial 
age of at least some of these implements can be proved 
without reference to the one from Butzville, or whether the 
scratches on others are glacial or not ; and I am disposed 
to place less value on the striae on the Trenton specimens, 
because it is obviously possible that they may be artificial. 
Opposite Dr. Abbott’s house, about 2 miles below Trenton, 
the high bank bounding the river has been worn back into 
a deep bend, and a wide alluvial plain now lies between it 
and the Delaware. I sketched the section of the beds 
forming the bluff (Fig. 1) at this point. The top bed is 
here an unstratified sandy clay, with a few scattered pebbles, 
and occasionally very large boulders, none of which were, 
however, seen at this locality ; beneath this lie alternations 
of fine sandy gravel, sand, coarse gravel, and boulder-beds. 
Dr. Abbott pointed out to me the upper layer of pebbles as 
