23(5 The Am^ican Geologist. April, i893 
other explanations. Some of these puzzling facts may be 
enumerated. 
In the first place, it seemed strange that the quartzes found in 
the loam should be confined exclusively to sites occupied or nat- 
urally resorted to by modern tribes who, as I have shown, left 
refuse identical in character and material with that found in the 
loam. In the second place, these quartzes were not in beds or 
layers at definite depths beneath the surface, as if made and used 
on the site at intervals in glacial inundation, or as if distributed 
from sites of manufacture by water during the formation of the 
deposits. It seemed a most significant fact that they were, in all 
observed cases, distributed somewhat uniformly through the 
stratum of sand extending from the surface downward, as if let 
into the deposit from above by some disturbing agency. In the 
third place, as professor Winchell has observed,* there were, so 
far as can be determined, no exposures of quartz-veins fronj which 
the raw material could be obtained at the period of gravel depo- 
sition involved ; and, in the fourth place, professor Winchell had, 
at another point, secured neolithic implements from this .same 
deposit, t So strongl}^ were these suggestive observations im- 
pressed upon my mind that I felt impelled to begin the search 
for more definite evidence, and especially for evidence of agencies 
that could have served to introduce articles of modern make from 
the surface. Fortunately it was not necessary to go far. In 
digging the trench on the Babbitt site it was observed, as shown 
in fig. 3, that the rotting of the roots of large trees would per- 
mit the lowering of surface objects into the superficial deposits, 
and that as a result general distribution would in time result ; but 
this did not seem to be a sufficiently potent agent. It was also 
apparent that distribution, such as that observed, would result 
from disturbances of the soil by burrowing animals, like the 
gopher, badger and prairie dog, by the wallowing of buffalo, by 
the cutting of paths by elk, and by excavations made by men, 
but these were not entirely satisfactory' agencies, as they were 
not within the range of present observation. I passed up and 
down the margin of the terrace, examining each exposure of the 
strata and every contour of the bluff. I soon found that the 
winds had played with these surface sands and that dunes had 
*Winchell, N. H., 6th An. Rept. Geol. Survey of IMinu., p. 57. 
tibid. p. 60. 
