Mail and the Glacial Period, 181 
1 searched the l)aiiks of the Ohio and its tributaries for a distance 
•of a hundred miles or more to see if the sections of its aUuvium 
might show human or art remains of another kind than those 
derived from the known indigenes of this country. This work 
also proved substantially fruitless. Traces of savage man ap- 
peared at many points but they were all superficial ; in the deeper 
pai'ts of the sections T found nothing which could fairly create a 
suspicion that a really ancient member of the species had dwelt 
in this valley. Whenever I could estaltlish anything like time 
ratios they seemed to show that man had not been at work in this 
part of the country for more than one or two thousand years. 1 
attach little importance to these efforts I made to show the an- 
tiquit}' of these remains but the result of many such endeavors 
was to incline me to the view that the oldest of them did not, 
much, if at all. antedate the Christian era. 
1 have made little mention in print of m}' ettorts to trace the 
tixistence of man in the region east of the Mississippi, partly for 
the reason that the evidence gained was purely negative and 
as such was of no great value; it-seemed likely to be overthrown by 
subsequent iuciuiry. The onl}' positive conclusion which I at- 
tained was to the etfect that man had never taken to our caves or 
hunted our larger herbivora in the way he did in Europe, and if 
he occupied this part of the continent in the time when he was 
settled in the old world his habits were peculiar. 
After these resultless efforts to get upon the trail of a primitive 
man in the eastern part of the Mississippi valley and at other 
parts in the southern Appalachians. I undertook in a more 
general way to search for such evidence in the New England 
district. Here too 1 failed to ascertain anything which could be 
reckoned as proof that man had l)een on the ground for two 
thousand years: in fact T have seen nothing wliicli raised a pre- 
sumption of his presence for half that time in the region north of 
New York. There is no clear evidence, however, as to the length 
of his sojourn in this district which is known to me. 
It is perhaps well to say that at every stage of my encpiiries 
both in New England and in the Ohio valley 1 hav(> always found 
accommodating persons who were ready to supply me with just such 
evidence as they knew I desired to obtain. I remember a clever 
person near Cumberland gap who found ancient pipes "galore" in 
most improbable places; they were excellent anti(|nes excejjt as to 
