ISS The American Geologist. March, 1893. 
send down tap roots to a much greater depth than eight feet. If 
now we take into account the number of generations of trees that 
have occupied this ground* it would seem probable that scarcely 
a square foot remains which has not at some time been occupied 
by large tip roots. When a root decays the surrounding eai'th set- 
tles into the cavity and if this process be repeated several times 
the amount of intrusion which a chipped stone might undergo is 
considerable. 3rd. ^^ burrowing animals. These animals might 
begin their passage through a hollow, partially decayed root and 
thus help on an intrusion which the decay of the root had initi- 
ated. 
It should be remarked that the above methods of intrusion may 
be sufficient to account for the occasional burial of a chipped 
stone but could not account for the occurrence, at this depth, of 
a stratum or well defined horizon characterized b}^ a vast number 
of such stones. In the case under discussion, however, only the 
one stone has been found. It therefore remains a question 
whether it was dropped before the clav was deposited or has been 
buried subsequentl}'. 
The Loveland chipped stone was found by Dr. Metz in the 
valley gravels of a Little Miami terrace. These terraces occur 
now only as occasional remnants in the recesses of the valley so 
that continuous tracing cannot }>e made, but there appears no 
reason to doubt that the terrace at Loveland is the deposit of a 
glacial stream having the age of the outer moraine of the Miami 
and Scioto glacial lobes. This being the case it is referable to a 
distinct stage in the glacial epoch whose relationships to the gla- 
cial epoch as a whole are under investigation by the U. S. Geo- 
logical Survey at the present time. 
The bed at Loveland from which Dr. Metz extracted the 
chipped stone was exposed in a railway gravel pit and is 20 to 25 
feet below the surface. It consists of loose gravel carrying con- 
siderable sand, it is nowhere firmly cemented and as a rule is 
entirely free from cement. The large admixture of sand might 
render it difficult to determine whether or not certain portions of 
it are undisturbed and even more difficult to determine whether 
a chipped stone or, for that matter, any particular stone had been 
*It is estimated by Prof. Chamberlin, to whom I am indebted for 
many usefid hints in the study of such (luestions, that in the time 
since the last ice invasion there would probably have been at least 
fifty generations of trees on this ground. 
