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(cretaceous). The question was finally settled by the discovery of artificially shaped stones in and beneath the deposits.
Again, an implement bearing deposit of gravel was recently discovered by the late Miss F. E. Babbitt at Little Falls, Minnesota, and sufficient (a very little) digging was done to satisfy the discoverer, and all paleolithic archeologists as well, that the objects were really imbedded in the glacial gravels. In the summer of 1892 I visited the place and carried a trench twenty feet horizontally into the terrace face on the "implement bed" level before encountering the gravels in place. The talus deposits were several feet thick, and were of such a nature that their true character could not be determined without careful and extensive trenching. The whole talus deposit was here well stocked with Indian quartz quarry-shop rejects, which were as usual of paleolithic types, and it was but natural that Miss Babbitt's conclusions, although based as they necessarily were upon inexpert observations, backed by such well known "types" of "implements" should be unhesitatingly accepted by believers.
The occurrence of these telling examples of the deceptive appearance of re-set gravels would seem to justify and emphasize the conviction created by a critical examination of the two leading so-called paleolithic sites at Trenton, that Dr. Abbott, notwithstanding his asseverations to the contrary, has been deceived. Very strong support, it seems to me, is given to this conclusion by the recently published opinion of the late Dr. H. Carvill Lewis, a glacialist familiar with the Trenton region, and with the work of Dr. Abbott at the period of his paleolithic castle building. Dr. Lewis is reported to have maintained before an open meeting of the Academy of Science in Philadelphia "that what Dr. Abbott believed to be undisturbed layers (of gravel) were those of an ancient talus."[1] This remark may refer to both the main sites—the one at the railroad station and the other at the river front—or possibly only to the former. I have also heard it stated that that eminent scholar, Dr. Leidy, who must have had ample opportunities of
- ↑ Brinton, D. G.,Science, Oct. 28, p. 249.