The National tribune., 1892-04-14

The Valley of the Delaware River is the
most eastern position in which such nipple
ments have been found in great abundance,
| and the following is an outline Of DIR. Abbott s
! discoveries there 1t must be remembered
that the level of this stream was then 90
| feet higher than it is at present; that Penn
| svlyania had a sub-arctc climate, and that
| the great river. encountered by masses of ice
| and fed bv affiuents which have now dwin-
! died like itself, and by an innumerable num-
! Der of variable and often temporary floods that
burst forth from beneath the nurthern glaciers,
carried an immensely greater mass of material
| than its waters now displace. 1hls would, OF
course, be deposited in the largest amount at
the point where the continuous downward cur
rent met Underwater, and in this way the
Trenton Drift" which has yielded the relics
spoken of was forTs ed. Here at time when
Eskimo were hunting the walrus on the coast
of New Jerseyand reindeer we're plentiful in
its forests, these argillita or stone-clay imple-
ments were covered up and preserved.
Apart from purposes of Identification the de-
tailed construction of instruments so rude has
little value. They evidently subserved a
variety of uses, and were without special de-
sign, so that differences drawn from adaptation
to the degree of faculty exhibited by their de-
sgners, are altogether vague. This much,
however is true namely, that IN all places, and
at all times, such unspecialized works are the
characteristic productions of men entirely
savage.
Without, then, minutely describing these
palRoliths from the Delaware Valley, 1t may
be said that they are identical in character with
those of the River Drift in Europe. Here there
was no limestone formation, and consequently
no caves produced by its chemical decomposi-
ton under the action of water saturated with
carbonic acid derived from decomposing vege-
table matter.
If there had BEEN It is a reasonable presump-
ton that people who were protected from the
inclemencies of those seasons, and whose nat
urally- provided dwelling places tended to
localiZe groups and promote sedentary occnpa-
tons would have carved moose and bison horns,
etched mastodon tusks, and made ornaments
from walrus ivory and VOLTS teeth like the
cave-dwellers OF the SefnTs and Yezere.
The men were certainly there and possibly
they were the ancestors Of the present Eskimo
of Greenland and British America. On the
other hand, they may have been predecessors
Of people comparatively recently arrived who
became the pr0genitors of our Indian. 1t is,
however, suggested that the opinion that the
Old Stone populations mysteriously passed
away, or disappeared, and that there is no con-
nection between these and the men who pol
shed their implements and were in every way
so much more advanced, can scarcely be ac-
cepted as fual.
Part Of them may have gone north when the
Ice Age closed. as certain animals are known to
have done. But during interglacial periods,
or indeed at any time during the Pleistocene
Era it is quite within the limits of probability
to suppose that other aggregates Of similar
type living beyond the reach of arctic influ-
ences may have developed their arts indefinitely
and communicated them.
This contact resulted either from the fact
that the ice pushed men from the north south
ward or that milder climate opened the north
to migrations from the south. In any case,
however, there is nothing to show that the
River Drift men OF Europe or America became
extinct.
Most Of the clay-stone specimens from the
Trenton Drift were broken ages ago, as the
weatherng of their fractured surfaces show.
They are Of three classes, which Dr. Abbott
thus describes: Large almond shaped argyll
lites having a curved, blunt base, and sharp
cutting edges running together in the form of
a well defined point
"All the surfaces Of this form are produced by
careful chipping and finished implement Of
this pattern is as well-defned in every feature
as the most typical European specimen. A
second form has cutting edge running along
both sides and ends; there being no distinct
base or point" These latter are the so-called
"turtlebaclls," j. e., elliptical clay stones that
are convex on one surface and fiat upon the
other.
We may then regard the presence of Palao-
lithic race in America during the Quaternary
Period as proved.