Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/169

Rh latter period of greatest increase in prices that the heaviest purchases were made by the Government on account of munitions and supplies. The increased cost of the war by reason of this increase in the price of commodities, which in turn may be in a great degree attributed to the use of irredeemable paper money invested with legal-tender quality, has been estimated at over a thousand millions of dollars, and the interest on this increased cost, another equal sum. By so much, furthermore, as these supplies and other necessaries of life were increased in price through the depreciation of the currency, those who rendered personal service in the army and navy were deprived of what ought to have been the purchasing power of the payments made to them by the Government for such service.



HE doubt which lingers in the minds of many concerning the sufficiency of the evidence for the existence of man in America during the Glacial period is so great, and has been so industriously fomented in certain quarters, that special interest has been manifested in a fresh discovery recently brought to light in Ohio. The discovery consists of a chipped chert implement, one inch and three quarters long and three quarters of an inch wide in its broadest part, with a projecting shoulder upon one edge, giving to it the character of what, in aboriginal usage, would be called a knife. The implement was found a mile and a half below Brilliant Station on the Ohio River, six miles from Steubenville, Ohio. In view of recent doubts upon the subject, it is necessary to give special attention to the evidence in three particulars: 1. The competence and character of the discoverer. 2. The facilities for noting the undisturbed condition of the gravel in which the implement lay. 3. The evidence that the gravel is of glacial age.

1. The Competence and Character of the Discoverer.—Mr. Sam Huston, the discoverer, is a graduate of the Scientific Department of Washington and Jefferson College, and has for twenty years or more been the county surveyor of Jefferson County, Ohio, residing at Steubenville. Having charge of the public improvements of the county, especially of the construction of the turnpikes, his familiarity with the topography, and especially with the gravel deposits along the river terraces, extensively resorted to for 