Washington, the surface of the Columbia deposit is 150 feet above tide, and that the deposit itself contains many boulders, some of which are as much as two or three feet in diameter. These are mingled with the gravel in such a way as to show that they must have been brought down by floating ice from the head-waters of the Potomac when the winters were much more severe than now. That this deposit is properly the work of the river is shown by the entire absence of marine shells.

According to Mr. McGee, also, there is a gradual decrease in the height of these delta terraces of the Columbia period as they recede from the glacial boundary—that at the mouth of the Susquehanna being 245 feet, that of the Potomac 140 feet, that on the Rappahannock 125, that on the James 100, and that on the Roanoke 75; while the size of the transported boulders along the streams also gradually diminishes in the same order. During the Columbia period the Susquehanna River transported boulders fifty times the size now transported, while the Potomac transported them only up to twenty times, the Rappahannock only ten times, the James only five, and the Roanoke only two or three times the size of those now transported. This progressive diminution, both in the extent of the deposit and in the coarseness of the material deposited by these rivers at about the time of the maximum portion of the Glacial period, is what would naturally be expected under the conditions supposed to exist in connection with the great Ice age, and is an important confirmation of the glacial theory.

That the period of subsidence and more intense glacial conditions during which the Columbia deposits took place, preceded, by a long interval, the deposition of the gravel terraces at Trenton, N. J., and the analogous deposits in the Mississippi Valley where paleolithic implements have been found, is evident enough. The Trenton gravel was deposited in a recess in the Columbia deposit which had

S

been previously worn out by the stream. Indeed, in every place where opportunity offers for direct observation the Trenton gravel is seen to be distinctly subsequent to the other. It was not buried by the Philadelphia red gravel and brick-clay, but to a limited degree overlies and buries it.

The data for measuring the absolute length of time between these two stages of the Glacial period are very indefinite. Mr. McGee, however, supposes that since the Columbia period a sufficient time has elapsed for the falls of the Susquehanna to recede more than twenty miles and for those of the Potomac eighteen miles, and this through a rock which is exceedingly obdurate. But, in channels opening, as these do, freely outward, it is difficult to tell in what epochs the erosion has been principally performed, since there are no buried channels, as in the glaciated area, enabling us to determine whether or not much of the eroding work of the river may have been accomplished in preglacial times.

The lapse of time which, upon the least calculation, separates the Columbia epoch from the Trenton, gives unusual importance to any discovery of paleolithic implements which may be made in the earlier deposits. We are bound, therefore, to consider with special caution the reported discovery of an implement in these deposits at Claymont, Delaware. The discovery was made by Dr. Hilborne T. Cresson, on July 13, 1887, during the progress of an extensive excavation in constructing the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, nineteen miles south of Philadelphia. The implement was from eight to nine feet below the surface. As there is so much chance for error of judgment respecting the undisturbed condition of the strata, and as there was so little opportunity for Dr. Cresson to verify his conclusion, we may well wait for the cumulative support of other discoveries before building a theory upon it; still, it will be profitable to consider the situation.

Both Mr. McGee and myself have visited the locality with Dr. Cresson, and there can be no doubt that the

implement occurred underneath the Columbia gravel. The line of demarcation is here very sharp between that

a

FIG. 75.-Argillite implement, found by H. T. Cresson, 1887, in Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut, one mile from Claymont, Delaware, in Columbia gravel, eight to nine feet below the overlying clay bed: a, face view; b, side view (No. 45,726) (Putnam).

gravel and the decomposed strata of underlying gneiss rock, which appears in our illustration as a light band in the middle of the section exposed. Some large boulders which could have been moved only in connection with floating ice are found in the overlying deposit near by. This excavation is about one mile and a half west of the

FIG. 76.-General view of section of Baltimore and Ohio cut, near Claymont, Delaware, where Mr. Cresson found paleolithic implements figured in the text (from photograph by Cresson).

Delaware River, and about 150 feet above it, being nearly at the uppermost limit of the Columbia deposit in that vicinity.

The age of these deposits in which implements have been found at Claymont and at Trenton will be referred to again when we come to the specific discussion of the date of the Glacial period. It is sufficient here to bring before our minds clearly, first, the fact that this at Claymont is connected with the river floods accompanying the ice at its time of maximum extension, and when there was a gradually increasing or differential depression of the country to an unknown extent to the northward.

Two radically different theories are presented to account for the deposits variously known as the Columbia gravel and the Philadelphia brick-clay. Mr. McGee, in the monograph above referred to, supposes them to have been deposited during a period of a general subsidence of the coast-line; so that they took place at about tide-level. Mr. Upham, on the other hand, supposes them to have been deposited during the period of general elevation to whose influence he mainly attributes the Glacial period itself. In his view much of the shallow sea-bottom adjoining the present shore off from Delaware and Chesapeake Bays was then a land surface, and the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehanna Rivers, coming down from the still higher elevations of the north, flowed through extensive plains so related to the northern areas of elevation that deposition was occurring in their valleys, owing in part to the flooded condition of the streams, in part to the differential elevation, and in part to the superabundance of silt and other débris furnished by the melting ice-sheet in the head-waters of these streams.

The deposits of Trenton gravel occurred much later, at a time when the ice had melted far back towards the head-waters of the Delaware, and after the land had nearly resumed its present relations of level, if indeed