338 TJie American Geologist. June, i898 
man is in all cases of postglacial and consequently very much 
later date. 
It is not at present possible to apply the same distinction 
to the human remains found in North America. No case has 
yet been brought forward in which the tools or weapons of 
man have been found in such circumstances as to allow the 
belief that they were of interglacial age. Without entering 
here into details it will be sufificient to say that the most 
ancient and authentic of them make no claim to be of older 
date than the gravels of the last great glacial advance. The 
stone weapons of Ohio, Minnesota, New Jersey, etc., make no 
pretensions to greater antiquity than this. Viewed therefore 
according to the manner of British archaeologists and geolo- 
gists who accept the theory of Prof. Geikie they are all of post- 
glacial and consequently of neolithic date, be their pattern 
what it may. Most of them, too, are of so distinctly modern a 
type, such as those from California and the New London axe,* 
that their neolithic character is obvious. Even the argillyte 
implements from New Jersey, probably the oldest yet de- 
scribed, cannot claim an antiquity greater than early post- 
glacial. The same may be said of the spear-head from New- 
comerstown, Ohio. 
In view of the above statements it is very desirable to avoid 
altogether the use of the terms "palgeolithic" and "palseolith" 
in reference to American prehistoric implements, at least un- 
til a good case is made out for an antiquity comparable with 
that of the genuine palseoliths of England. Almost all the 
former are essentially and unmistakably neolithic, and that 
term alone can characterize them. If, however, any should 
feel dissatisfied with a word of so wide a signification and de- 
sire one of more restricted meaning I would suggest that 
'' pro-neolith'" may be applied to those relics which show by 
their association with glacial beds that they are very closely 
connected in date with the retreat of the ice, leaving the older 
*If this obvious fact had been borne in mind some of the discussion 
on the latter implement at the recent meeting at Toronto (B. A. A. S.) 
might have been avoided. One distinguished speaker spent his time 
in contesting its palaeolithic nature which no one had even suggested. 
It is a ground axe of green slate and its neolithic character was, of 
course, assumed without argument by the archaeologists in the section. 
