Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology11893univ).pdf/161

Trenton and the Delaware Valley no longer have exclusive claims to reputed evidences of glacial man. For a number of years reports have come from the West of finds of implements in ice-age drift. Miss Babbitt in Minnesota, Cresson in Indiana and Metz and Mills in Ohio, have in turn announced the discovery of specimens of these rare and precious mementos of antiquity. I have already, in papers published in The Journal of Geology and in the American Geologist, raised questions as to the proper interpretation of the finds in Trenton and at Little Falls, Minnesota. A brief study of the Ohio finds may now be undertaken with a view of presenting and weighing such doubts as may have arisen with respect to the value of the evidence furnished by them. I have endeavored in this, as in the other cases, to keep well within the bounds of legitimate criticism, desiring to allow all that can be justly claimed for the evidence presented in support of the theory of a glacial paleolithic man in America. In dealing with this subject, however, I have found it necessary to keep in mind the fact that the evidence to be considered has been collected and presented by advocates of the paleolithic theory who have welcomed finds without critical scrutiny, and have reached and presented conclusions as much because they were in the line of the expected and desired, as because they were actually susceptible of demonstration. The advocates of the theory have naturally taken every opportunity to emphasize the importance of the evidence collected as viewed from their own standpoint. To insure correct final judgment it is necessary that other points of view be taken and that the evidence be subjected to every possible test. I shall confine myself to fields in which I have made personal and most careful observations. I do not desire to secure the acceptance as final of any particular view with respect to the history of early man in America. I am not intro-