Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/336

322 But there were many like finds in Neocene gravels and gravels of Glacial age stretching down into Virginia and northward through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. One after another these gravel sites were explored by Mr. Holmes and his assistants in the same manner, and in every instance it was revealed that the stone objects were found in the overplacement, that in no case could they be found in the underlying rocks. Objects of the same character have been observed all over the United States. Within the last twenty years the writer of this article has seen them made by Indians in the Rocky Mountain region, and they are scattered far and wide over nearly all the gravel hills of this country. This creates a presumption that, where there are so many of modern origin, all may be modern. It has already been mentioned that certain implements of this kind had been found in gravels, supposed to be of Glacial age, in Minnesota. This is known as the Babbitt find. Finally, Mr. Holmes, together with Prof. Winchell, the State Geologist of Minnesota, visited the locality. They made careful examinations, and were entirely satisfied with the evidence that the stone objects of that site were found in overplacement.

Up to this stage one locality had not been examined with care by the new methods—the locality in Trenton, which had especially become historic by reason of the many collections made therefrom for sundry museums; and this Mr. Holmes finally visited. The implements collected had been found mainly, perhaps not wholly, along old banks of streams, and two localities of this nature had furnished many of the objects of the museums. When visited by Mr. Holmes and other geologists, implements could not be found save in the overplacement. The principal of these sites was a low bluff of gravel in the city of Trenton, and property conditions prevented thorough examination of the site by trenching; thus it seemed that final observation by the new methods was no longer possible. But at this stage the authorities of the city of Trenton commenced to dig a sewer parallel to the bluff and but a few steps back from its face—a deep trench to carry a large body of sewage to a distance where it would no longer be noxious to the inhabitants. Shortly after this work began Mr. Holmes again visited the place, and returned from time to time during its progress, and for upward of a month kept an expert assistant watching the progress of the digging. With all the examination made no stone implement was ever found. This led him to the conclusion that the flaked stones originally found on the bank really belonged to the overplacement and not to the foundation formation of Glacial age.

In the fall of 1889 the writer visited Boise City, in Idaho. While stopping at a hotel some gentlemen called on him to show