290 Tlie American Geologist. November, i89i> 
years, and no longer constitutes a satisfactory field of re- 
search. In its present condition it is a ravine about 125 feet 
in length (the upper or eastern end of the original ravine has 
been filled up with brush and dirt), thirty feet in average width 
and fourteen feet from the top of the bank to the present water- 
level. It is cut into the level sand-plain which extends from 
the moraine hills on the east of the valley to the river. The 
south side of the ravine has a slope of about 50 degrees, and 
is covered with grass and underbrush. The north side is very 
irregular, but has a slope of 40 to 50 degrees. It shows signs 
of having been greatly disturbed in recent years, probably by 
Dr. Holmes' workmen in digging a ditch in 1892. No ditch 
is visible at present, as its banks have crumbled away. The 
bottom of the ravine is submerged and covered w'ith logs. The 
north bank exposes fine gravel and sand, but not in definite 
stratification. The view from the bank would suggest that 
the immediate walls of the ravine are a talus of incoherent 
material at least several feet in thickness and covering com- 
pletely the outcropping edges of the undisturbed strata. 
There were several small white quartz chips in the upper 
few feet of the strata, notably immediately under the soil. One 
fine quartz flake was picked up on the surface of the field 
nearby, fifteen feet north of the edge of the ravine. There 
was a small pocket close to the surface of the bank, but the 
flakes are in comparatively small number in this locality, many 
spots along the roads in Swan township, on the west side of the 
river below Little Falls, much exceeding them. The quartz 
chips are very sparsely distributed over the sand-plain from 
the "notch" north and east, but I found a dozen or more 
angular pieces of white quartz in coarse sand in a gutter in the 
west end of a hollow near the base of Hole-in-the-day's bluff. 
They are apparently flakes. All those which have been men- 
tioned were distinctly superficial in position, being confined 
strictly to the upper few feet and mostly tO' the upper six 
inches of the sand-bed. Miss Babbitt's so-called flint imple- 
ments were of a different class, coming from a thin stratum 
near the base of the bank. As Dr. Holmes' efforts have dem- 
onstrated* that the early claims of their Glacial age were found- 
ed on imperfect evidence and were erroneous, I desire to ex- 
*Am. Geol., vol. XI, p. 21Q, 1803. 
