Dana continues: “He says that one arrow-head lay ‘immediately under the femur or thigh-bone,’ and he further states in his later article of 1857, that ‘he carefully thought to investigate the point as to its having been brought thither after the deposit of the bone’ and decided against it. The observation and conclusion would have been more satisfactory had the author been a better observer.” “The descriptions of the deposits in Gasconade County containing the remains of an animal the principal part of which was consumed by fire is a still more unsatisfactory basis for a safe conclusion as to age. But in the article of 1857, he says that the layer of ashes, etc., ‘was covered by strata or alluvial deposits consisting of clay, sand and soil, from eight to nine feet thick, _forming the bottom of the Bourbeuse (River) in general_,’ which seems to make it almost certain that the beds were of quite recent origin.”[131] Mr. Dana considers Dr. Koch’s evidence as “_very doubtful_.”[132] Dr. Foster has figured a fossil which, for a better name, he has designated as a “stone hatchet,” from the modified drift of Jersey County, Illinois.[133] He is positive as to the position in which it was found, but has doubt as to its human origin. The probabilities are that its peculiar shape is due to its exposure to atmospheric agents. He remarks, however: “On the whole, I will not positively assert that this specimen is of human workmanship, but I affirm that if it had been recovered from a plowed field I should have unhesitatingly said it was an Indian hatchet.” In the _Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences_ for July, 1859, Dr. Holmes describes the occurrence of fragments of pottery in close proximity with the bones of the mastodon and megatherium, on the Ashley River in South Carolina. The case, however, has not been considered authentic by scientific men. Dr. Holmes is possibly mistaken.[134] Col. Charles Whittlesey, in 1838, saw at Portsmouth, Ohio, on the Ohio River, remains of ancient fire-places situated eighteen to twenty feet above low water and about fifteen feet below the surface. He states, “at low water and thence up to a height of twelve or fifteen feet is a bed of sand and transported gravel, containing pebbles of quartz, granite, sandstone and limestone, derived partly from the adjacent Carboniferous and Devonian rocks and partly from the northern drift, the upper part much the coarsest. On this is a layer of blue quicksand from one to five feet thick, in which is a timber-bed including large numbers of the trunks, branches, stumps and leaves of trees, such as are now growing on the Ohio, principally birch, black-ash, oak and hickory. Over the dirt-bed is the usually loamy yellow clay of the valley, fifteen to thirty feet thick, on which are very extensive works of the Mound-builders. In and near the bottom of this undisturbed homogeneous river-loam I saw two places where fire had been built on a circular