The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2): with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish ConquestFiske, John
History
The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2): with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest
Fiske, John
America -- Discovery and exploration; Latin America -- History
Metz, who found a true palaeolith of black flint at Madisonville, in the
Little Miami valley, eight feet below the surface. Since then further
discoveries have been made in the same neighbourhood by Dr. Metz, and in
Jackson county, Indiana, by Mr. H. T. Cresson; and the existence of man
in that part of America toward the close of the Glacial period may be
regarded as definitely established. The discoveries of Miss Babbitt and
Professor Winchell, in Minnesota, carry the conclusion still farther,
and add to the probability of the existence of a human population all
the way from the Atlantic coast to the upper Mississippi valley at that
remote antiquity.
[Footnote 8: Wright's _Ice Age in North America_, p. 516.]
[Sidenote: and in Delaware.]
A still more remarkable discovery was made by Mr. Cresson in July, 1887,
at Claymont, in the north of Delaware. In a deep cut of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, in a stratum of Philadelphia red gravel and brick
clay, Mr. Cresson obtained an unquestionable palaeolith, and a few months
afterward his diligent search was rewarded with another.[9] This
formation dates from far back in the Glacial period. If we accept Dr.
Croll's method of reckoning, we can hardly assign to it an antiquity
less than 150,000 years.
[Footnote 9: The chipped implements discovered by Messrs.
Abbott, Metz, and Cresson, and by Miss Babbitt, are all on
exhibition at the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, whither it is
necessary to go if one would get a comprehensive view of the
relics of interglacial man in North America. The collection of
implements made by Dr. Abbott includes much more than the
palaeoliths already referred to. It is one of the most important
collections in the world, and is worth a long journey to see.
Containing more than 20,000 implements, all found within a very
limited area in New Jersey, "as now arranged, the collection
exhibits at one and the same time the sequence of peoples and
phases of development in the valley of the Delaware, from
palaeolithic man, through the intermediate period, to the recent
Indians, and the relative numerical proportion of the many
forms of their implements, each in its time.... It is doubtful
whether any similar collection exists from which a student can
gather so much information at sight as in this, where the
natural pebbles from the gravel begin the series, and the
beautifully chipped points of chert, jasper, and quartz
terminate it in one direction, and the polished celts and
grooved stone axes in the other." There are three principal
groups,--first, the interglacial palaeoliths, secondly, the
argillite points and flakes, and thirdly, the arrow-heads,
knives, mortars and pestles, axes and hoes, ornamental stones,
etc., of Indians of the recent period. Dr.
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