Editorial Conn/tent. 1ST 
trenie catastrophic geology or to summon from the vasty deep 
in which they are forever laid, the spectres of general cata- 
clysm, wreck -and ruin that oppressed the bygone ages. Ad- 
mitting catastrophe even on a large scale at times, we yet think 
that he has followed an ignis fatuus, though honestly, and in 
this we believe almost all geologists here and elsewhere will 
agree. His theory is less credible, less reasonable than that 
which it is intended to supplant, and we fancy some such sen- 
timent as this must have given origin to the unpleasantness 
at the recent election of new Fellows to the Royal Society. 
Glacial Man in America. 
The discussion between the advocates and the opponents of 
glacial man in America was renewed at the recent meeting of 
the Anthropological Section of the A. A. A. S. at Madison 
and some contributions of value were made by more than one 
of the speakers. Mr. E. Volk narrated the results of some 
work which he had done under the direction of Prof. F. W. 
Putnam in the valley of the Delaware river, where about thirty 
miles above Trenton he had exposed a number of ancient pits 
and taken from them relics of various kinds, whose position 
indicated an occupation of the valley by successive peoples. 
In- the shallow pits and in the surface peat he found abun- 
dance of jasper implements, but lower down, beneath the old 
soil and in the gravel these were entirely wanting, and only 
argillites of rude type occurred. No mixture was found on 
this lower level, but the argillites continued up to the surface, 
thus apparently indicating, as Mr. Volk contended, that the 
earliest inhabitants did not use or work the jasper and flint 
but that this was a later art introduced by a later race. 
Referring to the "reject'' theory, Mr. Volk said that he had 
found seventeen of these rough tools in a cache all put care- 
fully together, a fact scarcely compatible with the belief that 
they were merely the waste refuse of the manufacture. 
The failure of most visitors to find anything on the ground 
was alluded to by various speakers and chiefly by Dr. Mercer, 
who said that he had himself visited the classic quarries 
at Amiens, St. Acheul and Chelles but had found nothing, and 
this he said was the almost regular experience of geologists 
who had gone there during the last forty years, one or two 
