250 The American Geologist. October, 1901. 
it also occurs with the same relations to a basic rock that the 
German bauxites show to basalt." 
In another chapter the author describes "basaltic iron ore," 
i. c. such that is derived undoubtedly during- the process of 
weathering from basalt. This he considers an additional link 
in the evidence which goes to prove that aluminous iron ores 
may have a residual origin from basalt. 
The writer considers the report and conclusions of Mr. 
Jacquet as contributory evidence of the truth of his hypothesis 
of the derivation of the Mesabi iron ore which is also. some- 
times distinctly pisolitic, from basic volcanic sand gathered on 
the beach of the Tacomic ocean and accumulated in greater 
thicknesses in the adjacent shallow waters. n. h. w. 
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE RACES OF MANKIND. 
In view of the latest discussions bearing on this question, 
by Howorth in the August number of the Geological Maga- 
zine, and by McGee and others at the Denver meeting of the 
American Association, it seems timely to note here some of the 
geologic evidences of the great antiquity of man, and to con- 
sider the origin of his principal races, commonly called white, 
yellow, red, and black. 
Among the numerous localities in the northern United 
States where traces of man's presence during the closing part 
of the Ice age have been found, is one in Gaines, Orleans 
county, N. Y., about fifty miles east-northeast from Niagara 
Falls. A prehistoric hearth was here encountered in digging 
a well, at the depth of fifteen to eighteen feet below the surface, 
being at the base of the beach ridge of gravel and sand which 
marks the highest southern shore of the glacial lake Iroquois, 
about 175 feet above lake Ontario (G. K. Gilbert, in the Auier- 
ican Anthropologist, vol. ii, pp. 173,174, April, 1889). Charred 
sticks, with ashes, and three boulders laid to inclose the fire- 
place, there attested man's abode, or a transient hunting ex- 
pedition, at the time when the front of the receding ice-sheet 
yet rested on the adjacent part of Canada close north of Tor- 
onto, and on the Adirondacks and the St. Lawrence valley, 
turning the outflow of lake Iroquois to the Mohawk and Hud- 
son rivers. The Niagara had just begun to cut its gorge; from 
