Early Man in Minnesota. — Holmes. 235 
of the surface loam within a radius of one hundred and fift}^ feet 
from the supposed bed of paleoliths. It is not necessary to 
dwell further upon these extracts or to review other parts of her 
work, for, notwithstanding Miss Babbitt's evident sincerity' and 
prolonged and praiseworthy attempts to reach the truth, it should 
be plainly stated that had she deliberately planned to misunder- 
stand and misinterpret the more important phenomena of the site 
she could hardl}' have been more successful in accomplishing 
these ends. 
It is clear that the section exposed by m}' trench discloses ex- 
actly the conditions and phenomena that would result from the 
occupation of the site by quartz-workers of our neolithic aborig- 
ines at any period subsequent to the exposures of the Huronian 
bed rock b}' the post-glacial river, and there is nothing in the 
conditions and phenomena of the site that will enable us to sa}' 
whether the beginning of the (piartz-working dates back one hun- 
dred or one thousand years. Considering all features of the evi- 
dence, however, geologic, topographic, archeologic and historic, 
the probabilities are very strong that the former figure is more 
nearl}' correct than the latter. 
Having shown that there is no evidence of the presence of man 
in this locality during the earlier stages of the gravel-forming 
epoch, the proposition affirmed by Miss Babbitt, I desire now to 
examine briefl}' the evidence relating to his presence during the 
final stages of that era, as outlined by professor Winchell. It 
has already been stated that the early observations of the occur- 
rence of worked quartzes in the superficial glacial deposits are in 
every respect correct, and identical observations were made by 
me on the Babbit site in carrying the trench up over the level 
surface of the terrace. At all points within a radius of about one 
hundred and fifty feet from the Babbitt deposit the quartz frag- 
ments were distributed through the loam to the depth of from 
three to four feet. The same conditions were observed at other 
points, and I was at first entirely at a loss to account for the 
phenomena save on the theory, suggested b}' professor Winchell, 
that man lived upon the flood plain of the Father of Waters, at 
this point during later glacial times, shaping there his rude im- 
plements of quartz. But as m^- observations were continued and 
carried over a wider field I encountered facts that did not readily- 
accommodate themselves to this theory, suggesting the need of 
