Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/793

Rh that they were found in the auriferous gravel underlying a sheet of lava which flowed over them and has since been glaciated and cut through by the stream. Naturally, the occurrence of human relics, and relics of so late a type as were these, was not easily accepted by archæologists or geologists. Probability and prejudice were both on the other side. But both must yield before sufficient evidence; and we make bold to say that, in the face of the testimony now accumulated, skepticism is no longer reasonable. The objection raised against the discovery is unworthy of the able archæologist from whom it comes. "They belong to a modern industry, and were probably left in their shafts by the aboriginal gold-diggers a few centuries before the conquest. The manner of their deposition alone proves this, and the case is given up by Prof. Haynes in his appendix to Prof. Wright's book."

We do not wish to be discourteous, but justice impels us to ask if this distinguished archæologist really expects the public, or the scientist accustomed to the weighing of evidence, to accept the insinuation of one who was not near the spot in preference to the sworn statement of one who was there, and testifies that he took the relics with his own hands out of the gravel, and that there was no disturbance (such as an aboriginal shaft) or natural fissure by which access could be obtained either there or in the neighborhood. Verily, to us this seems like "criticism run mad."

As to competency in a matter of this kind, we will hear Mr. G. F. Becker, in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 1891, page 192:

"It has sometimes been objected to the authenticity of implements in the gravels that the finders, with the exception of Dr. H. H. Boyce, were miners and not scientific men. Now, so far as the detection of a fraud is concerned, a good miner, regularly employed in superintending the workings, would be much more competent than the ordinary geological visitor. The superintendent sees, day by day, every foot of new ground exposed, and it is his business to become thoroughly acquainted with its character; while he is familiar with every device for 'salting' a claim. The geological visitor finds a mine timbered and smoked. He can not fully acquaint himself with the ground, and is usually unfamiliar with tricks. It is therefore an argument in favor of the authenticity of implements that they have been found by miners. . . . There is, in my opinion, no escape from the conclusion that the implements actually occurred near the bottom of the gravels, and that they were deposited where they were found at the same time as the adjoining pebbles and matrix."

In reference to the above-quoted opinion of Prof. Haynes we