Archccological Notes on Mi/incsota. — Hcrshey. 283 
ARCHAEOLOGICAL NOTES ON 
CENTRAL MINNESOTA. 
By OscAE H. Heeshey, Freeport, 111. 
The vicinity of Little Falls, in tlie county of Morrison, 
central Minnesota, has become a well known field of research 
in American Rrchseology, by reason of the controversy over 
the significance of the so-called paleolithic types of human im- 
plements discovered originally by Prof. N. H. Winchell* and 
afterwards fully discussed by Miss F. E. Babbittt and by War- 
ren Upham.;|; Although the glacial age of the implement- 
bearing material has been scientifically discredited by the work 
of Dr. W. H. Holmes, § the question has not been completely 
settled. As each observer may view the facts in a slightly 
different light, and hence arrive at conclusions somewhat dis- 
tinct from those of others, I feel justified in placing before the 
archaeologic public the result of a somewhat desultory investi- 
gation, made in the early part of September, 1896, into the 
distribution and character of the artificially formed fragments 
of Morrison county. 
Geologically and topographically considered, the countrv 
included within the limits of Morrison county is a rolling drift 
plain elevated about 1,200 feet above the sea. In portions it 
is rapidly undulating, rising into steep morainic ridges and 
rounded knolls. Crossing it from north to south and lying 
at a level about 150 feet lower than that of the general upland, 
there are several flat gravel-and-sand plains. Through the 
most important of these plains flows the Mississippi river, 
which has trenched a trough or valley rarely much wider 
than the «treani and usually about 25 to 30 feet in depth. It 
is on this sand-plain and the steep slopes along the river bank 
that the quartz fragments which I am going to discuss are 
♦Sixth Annual Report, Geol. Xat. Hist. Sur. Minn., for 1877, PP- 53" 
64. 
tProc. A. A. A. S., vol. XXXII, for 1883. pp. 385-3Q0; vol. XXXIII, 
for 1884, pp. 593-599. American Naturali'st, vol. XVIII, 1884, [)p. 594, 
605, and 697-708. 
JAm. Naturalist, vol. XVIII, 1884, p]). 706-708. Proceedin.i^s, Boston 
Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. XXIII, pp. 436-447; May, 1888; reprinted with ad- 
dition of a glacial map of Minncst)ta, in VVright's Ice Age in North 
America, 1889, pp. 538-550. .^m. Geoh/gist, vol. XIII, pp. 363-4, May, 
1894. 
§Am. Geol., vol. XI, pp. 218-240, April, 1893. 
