116 The American Geologist. August, 1893 
in the April number from the pen of one of the editors of the 
American Geologist. The distinguished writer, though per- 
fectly courteous, fails to meet the point of the previous arti- 
cle and does not. consequently, answer any of its criticisms. 
So far from being an attack upon the LT. S. Geological Survey 
is was aimed solely at certain writers (of whom Major Powell 
says that only one is a permanent member of that body) who 
had trespassed beyond the due limits of scientific criticism in 
their reviews of Prof. Wright's recent hook, and far beyond 
the bounds of courtesy in their attacks on Prof. Wright 
himself. All that the director has written in defense of the 
survey is, therefore, beside the mark, while the discourtesy and 
bad logic of the assailants pass unnoticed and therefore unre- 
buked. 
Of course, we acquit the Director of all part in the original 
controversy. He was, he says, away from home and an invalid. 
But a word from him even implying- disapprobation of so 
unusual and unbecoming a mode of conducting a scientific 
controversy would have been of great weight and significance. 
This is not the place to enter into any argument concerning 
the evidence for the existence of glacial man in North Amer- 
ica. It is one of those geological problems whose solution is 
not yet fully attained or attainable. It is to be regretted that 
on a topic where the most scrupulous accuracy of statement is 
eminently desirable, a writer of Major Powell's distinction 
should have allowed himself to use language so lax or so 
capable of being misunderstood. As an illustration, when 
writing of the quartzites found on Pin} 7 Branch, he says: 
"Objects of the same character have been found all over the 
United States. Within the last twenty years the writer has 
seen them made by Indians in the Rocky Mountain region, 
and they are scattered far and wide over nearly all the gravel 
hills of the United States. 1 ' No doubt there is much truth in 
these words, but they are too sweeping in their significance. 
Again, the circumstances of the finding of the Nampa image,, 
as given by Prof. Wright in the Proceedings of the Boston 
Society of Natural History, are quoted incorrectly and appar- 
ently at second or third hand. Indeed, the language of Major 
Powell is almost a burlesque of the original and suggests a 
more erroneous notion of the facts than it actually asserts. 
