220 The American Geologist. April, i893 
about two miles below Little Falls, on the east side of the river 
he observed, to quote his exact words: 
"Pieces of chipped white quartz, which from their sharpness, and 
their color, indicate an artificial origin, and attract the eye of the 
visitor. It was only after a handful had been gathered, that at last 
an imperfect arrow-head was found. These chips, at this point, were 
found only over a small area, indeed they were not looked for at 
other points up or down the river, nor at any depth below the surface. 
This quartz, which is white and opaque, was evidently taken from 
some vein in the slate in this neighborhood, for the slate at Little 
Falls has several veins of that kind of quartz. 
"Subsequently, however, these chips were found to extend over a 
larger area, and to be incorporated with the materials of the river 
banks. * * * * They are found, not only on the surface of the 
flat on which Little Falls village stands, especially near the river, but 
on excavating the bank near the river, making a perpendicular sec- 
tion, they are found to extend downward three or four feet into the 
sand and gravel. A person in digging half an hour might find twenty- 
five or thirty. The material in which they occur is a homogeneous 
sand, passing downward gradually into a coarse sand and finally into 
a gravel. This flat along the river on the margin of which they are 
found, is about twenty-seven feet above the river, and is. now never 
covered by it. The bank itself may be divided into three parts, as 
follows, in descending order: 1. Loam sand, gravelly below. 2. 
Gravel, becoming stony below. 3. Ilardpan-drift, containing bowl- 
ders.* * * * 
"The quartz chips occur in No. 3 [of the section on p. 55], and abun- 
dantly on the flat (somewhat lower than the average here) directly 
opposite Little Falls, in the neighborhood of the trap dyke. They 
extend up and down the river also an unknown distance. They were 
found at the mouth of the Little Elk, two and a half miles above 
Little Falls. The belt on the west side which seems to aff'ord them 
is about 40 or 50 rods wide, but something less than )^ mile on the 
east side. On the west side they appear in the soil when large trees 
tearitup."t ***** 
"When they were first observed they were taken to be of much later 
date than they seem to be, indeed they were associated with the 
builders of the mounds and ridge.s that are seen at Little Falls and 
many other places in Minnesota, attributable to a race known as the 
Mound-Builders, who preceded the present Indian races. But these 
mounds and ridges at Little Falls are built of the very sand, and are 
situated on the very same plain in which these chips occur. In other 
words, the Mound-Builders dwelt at Little Falls since the spreading 
of the material of the plain ; hence they are post-glacial. The chipping 
races, if these chips are of human origin, preceded the spreading of 
the material of the plain, and must have been pre-glacial ; since the 
♦Winchell, N. H., Sixth Annual Report Minn. Geol. Survey, p. 54. tlbid. p. 56. 
