Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899: Volume LV, No. 3, July 1899Various
Religion
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899: Volume LV, No. 3, July 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
sustained? True; but did he live here in glacial time?
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--ICE-GORGED RIVER.
Reproducing on a small scale the conditions of the Glacial epoch.]
It has been stated in the most positive manner, which only positive
evidence could warrant, that so-called paleolithic implements have not
been found _in situ_ in gravel deposits at a distance from the river,
and such, _if there were such_, as appeared to be in the gravel, were
recent intrusions. This statement, in its several parts and its
entirety, is absolutely incorrect, and no excuse can be offered for
its publication. It is to be explained, however, because avowedly
predetermined. Wherever the glacial gravel of the Delaware tide-water
region is found, there paleolithic implements occur, as they also do
on and in the surface of areas beyond the gravel boundary. We accept,
notwithstanding the unscientific source of the suggestion, the
statement that post-glacial floods inhumed all traces of man found
beneath the superficial soils, and find that, if these traces are
considered in that light, some mysterious power was behind the
senseless flood, and always buried argillite paleolithic implements
far down in the gravel, and then selected argillite artifacts of more
specialized forms for the overlying sands and reserved the pottery and
jasper arrow points for the vegetation-sustaining soil. This, as
stated, is absurd, but such is the order of occurrence of the traces
of early man in the upland fields, and these are to be considered
carefully before a final conclusion can be reached. The broad,
elevated plateau extending eastward from the present bank of the river
offers facilities for studying the evidences of man's occupancy in
this region such as are to be found in few localities. The principal
reason for this is that almost no local disturbance has occurred since
the original deposition of the sand that overlies the gravel and
underlies the soil. The natural history of these underlying sands has
recently received a good deal of attention, because, unlike the deeper
gravels, there is perfect accord as to the occurrences therein of
artificially chipped objects; and the suggestion that they are of
intrusive origin being set aside as untenable, the geologists are now
divided on the question whether the sand is wind-blown, a modified
dune, and so not necessarily old even in years, or the result of
intermitting overflow of water, usually carrying a considerable amount
of sand and often heavy with washings from some distant clay bank. The
objections to the "eolian" theory are that pebbles and bowlders, even
of considerable weight, are scattered at all elevations through the
sand, and these pebbles, as a rule, do not present any evidence of
exposure to eroding sands, but are smooth and glassy, or the typical
water-worn pebbles of a brook or the river bed, and more significant
is the fact that the sands themselves are of different degrees of
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