Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology11893univ).pdf/167

tions, at least, of these gravels descended. I was somwhat surprised with the results, which proved so interesting and suggestive that they may well be referred to in this place. In a railroad cut recently made through morainal deposits near South Lebanon, about eight miles north of Loveland, I found numerous pieces of this brittle limestone, varying from minute bits to masses a foot or more in greatest dimension, showing traces of fracture and flaking resembling somewhat closely those of the implement or object found by Dr. Metz at Loveland. Indeed, some of these specimens are so well flaked that I would, under ordinary circumstances, not hesitate to call them artificial. In fact, all may be artificial, although the shapes are often eccentric, and the size, in cases, is greater than in any known flaked tool. It is a significant fact that nearly all the stones found in the deposit are covered with glacial striæ, and some of the conchoidal faces of the implement-like objects are scratched, through movements of the ice. It is true that man may have lived or hunted on or near the ice, and his tools or the refuse from their manufacture may have been taken up by the ice, passing afterwards into the moraine; but that they should enter the ice in numbers and so become striated through its movements, is highly improbable. The Loveland specimen has, however, a more decidedly artificial character than any of these, and were its inclusion in the gravels fully verified, and were it not alone and practically unsupported by other finds, it could well be accepted as important evidence of glacial occupation by a stone-flaking people.

Besides the Loveland finds, Dr. Metz obtained a specimen of rudely flaked black chert from a cistern which he was sinking in Madisonville, Ohio. It was found at the surface of, or slightly imbedded in, gravel beneath a bed of silt eight feet thick.^[1] Dr. Metz is a careful observer, and it is hard to believe that he would have permitted himself to be deceived although all must