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THE JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY.

the main gravel pit about twenty-five feet from the surface, by Dr. Metz, who expresses his full belief that it was in place in the gravels when found. A third slightly flaked stone from the same locality and position had been forwarded to the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. On examining this specimen at a subsequent date I found that it has no features that can with certainty be described as artificial.

It is not from a desire to discredit the observations of Dr. Metz, who is a most reputable and more than usually capable observer, that I raise the question of the verity of these finds. It is essential, in a case where so much depends on the finding of a single specimen, that every observation relating to it should be placed upon record in such a way that, in the future, judgments as to the value of the evidence may not be based entirely upon the testimony of a single observer whose acquirements may be restricted or whose preconceived notions may give a very marked bias to his observations and deductions.

Referring to the Loveland site, it may be remarked in the first place that it seems improbable that man would have occupied an area overrun by torrents capable of transporting, and transporting almost exclusively, the coarse materials forming these deposits, and the chances of the preservation of artificial features of specimens brought by floods from the valley above are extremely slight.[1] Of course, if man existed here during the glacial period, he may have sought the raw material for his rude arts on the banks of this stream during the periods of of low water and may have thus left the refuse of his shaping operations at almost any point; but a single specimen cannot, considering possible errors of observation, be regarded as sufficient for the establishment of such a conclusion.

In the second place, I may mention the fact that on carefully examining the Loveland specimen, I found it partly covered with dark, well-compacted earth, resembling the soil of the surface of

  1. ↑ The edge of the continental ice sheet was, according to Mr. Leverett, only about eight miles distant when these gravels were formed, which makes the probability of finding implements here still slighter.
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