Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/255



MAN. It has taken luillions of years, nobody eau guess within a iiiillioii years how long it has taken, to work out the grand scheme of creation as it now exists, before the eyes of living men. After all the animal life whose bony remains are locked uj) in solid rock or buried thousands of feet deep under deposits of earth and gravel had passed away, the area of Oregon was covered over with an ice cap thousands of feet deep. What change in the Earth, or the heavens, clianged ancient Oregon from the balmy climate producing figs and palm trees to that of a frigid region of continental ice can never be known. That the glacial age lasting for thousands, possibly a million years, did exist, is amply proved by the testimony of the rocks on all our mountain peaks. After the ice age then came Man.

Probably the most important discoveries ever announced in the field of American archaeology are contained in the newly pu})lished fifth volume of the reports of the Peabody museum. Harvard University.

In this volume Ernest Volk, of Trenton, New Jersey, published the evidence he has discovered showing the existence of man at the time of the glacial epoch in the Delaware valley, state of Delaware. This means that man existed in America at a prehistoric period which has been placed by geologists as far back as 400,000 years. It means that the early American was among the first men on earth, instead of being a comparatively late comer, as the majority of scientists have maintained.

During the last twenty-five years Mr. Volk has explored hundreds of excava- tions made by himself and others on the banks of the Delaware river, which in prehistoric ages was two or three times its present width. He points out that the characteristic soil formation of this region consists of (1) a layer of black soil on top of which lived the Indians who were here when white men first came; (2) below this the yellow drift deposited by argillite; tools six inches down in the yellow drift, and beneath another 18 inches of black soil.

"It contained," he says, "under a flat slab of argillite, a beautiful slender argillite spear head; also several chipped argillite boulders, argillite chips and a number of quartzite pebbles broken by fracturing. No charcoal, burnt stone or traces of fire were found. The yellow soil was not disturbed below the work- shop, nor was there any connection between the workshop and the black soil.'"

Then came the finding of human bones in the yellow dirt drift on Abbot's farm.

"On April 21, 1899," says Volk's report, "two distinct heaps of human bones were found. They were six feet below the present surface, and rested upon a stratum of whitish sand, coarse, clean and sharp, six inches thick."

The implements he found in the yellow drift were all of argillite. a kind of slate, and of two kinds only, one for penetrating, the other for cutting and scrap- ing. They are entirely different from the Indian stone implements, which are iiiMdc of chert, jasper and many other materials, and show a high degree of workmanship.

ECONOMIC GEOLOGY

Nature's great work in the geological up-building of this region has given to Oregon its different climates and soils, its mines of gold, silver,