Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology11893univ).pdf/39

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GLACIAL MAN IN THE TRENTON GRAVELS.
27

percentage of our talus deposits have been formed well within the historic period.

At Trenton the constantly exposed gravel banks afforded considerable argillite in bowlders, fragments and heavy masses, as well as some other flakable stones of inferior quality little used, and it is inevitable that the Indian who dwelt upon the shores of the river should have sought the workable pieces along the bluff, leaving the refuse everywhere; and it is a necessary consequence that the terrace margin, the bluff face, and the talus deposits, places little fitted for habitation, should for long distances contain no trace of any art shapes save such as pertain to manufacture. Thus are fully and satisfactorily accounted for all the turtle backs and other rude forms that our paleolith hunters have been so assiduously gathering. Nothing can be more fully apparent than that no other race than the Indian in his historic character and condition need be conjured up to reasonably account for every phase and every article of the recovered art. Mistaken interpretations of the nature of shop rejects, and the common association of these objects with redistributed gravels, are probably accountable for the many misconceptions that have arisen. Talus deposits form exceedingly treacherous records for the would-be chronologist. They are the reef upon which more than one paleolithic adventurer has been wrecked.

Relics of art attributed to gravel man have been collected, so far as I can gather from museum labels and from incidental references in various publications, from a number of sites aside from the two already referred to. These are scattered over the city, and the finds were made mostly in exposures of the gravels that remained visible for a short time only, as in street and cellar excavations and well pits. These reported finds can never be brought within the range of re-examination, and the searcher after unimpeachable testimony must content himself with placing them in the doubtful column on general principles. Urban districts are so subject to disturbance through cutting down of hills, filling in of depressions, grading of streets, digging of