studying them. The judgment of Mortillet is that twentytwo specimens exhibited unmistakable traces of intentional chipping, in which opinion I entirely concur. Only nine, however, were represented as coming from the Miocene, some of which showed on their surface an ́incrustation of grit, which was claimed as proof of their origin. But the opinion was freely expressed that, even if they really came from the Miocene deposits, they might have penetrated into them from the surface, through cracks, and thus have become so incrusted. It was accordingly resolved to hold the next international congress of prehistoric archæologists at Lisbon, in 1880, mainly for the purpose of settling this question, if possible, by an investigation conducted upon the spot. In the course of a visit made at that time to Otta, several artificial specimens were found on the surface by different searchers, but Professor Bellucci, of Perugia, was fortunate enough to discover a flint flake in situ, still so closely imbedded in the deposit that it required to be detached by a hammer. There is no question that this object was actually found in a Miocene deposit, but unfortunately it belongs to the doubtful category of external flakes, which, although they exhibit the "bulb of percussion," have no other sure indication that they are the work of man. As such bulbs can be produced by natural causes, some stronger proof than this of the existence of Tertiary man is demanded.

*

These are all the localities in Europe claimed by Mortillet to have furnished such evidence, but he thinks a strong confirmation of it is afforded by certain discoveries made in the auriferous gravels of California. I will not occupy space here in repeating arguments I have brought forward elsewhere to show the utter insufficiency of this evidence to prove the existence of man on the Pacific coast of our continent during the Pliocene period. They may all be summed up in the words of Le Conte: "The doubts in regard to this

* It has been figured by Bellucci, Archivio per l'Anthropologia e la Etnologia di Firenze, tome xi, p. 12, tav. iv, fig. 2. To me it possesses no value as evidence.

↑ The Prehistoric Archæology of North America, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. i, pp. 350–356.

extreme antiquity of man are of three kinds, viz.: 1. Doubts as to the Pliocene age of the gravels-they may be early Quaternary. 2. Doubts as to the authenticity of the findsno scientist having seen any of them in situ. 3. Doubts as to the undisturbed conditions of the gravels, for auriferous gravels are especially liable to disturbance. The character of the implements said to have been found gives peculiar emphasis to this last doubt, for they are not Paleolithic, but Neolithic."* The question has been raised whether this archæological objection is applicable to the stone mortars, numerous examples of which have been found in the gravels, some of them quite recently. If the evidence brought forward by Professor Whitney and others were limited to these mortars, it might very well be claimed that they are neither Palæolithic nor Neolithic; that the smoothness of their surface is owing to their having been hollowed out of pebbles that have been polished and worn by natural forces. But Professor Whitney has cited numberless instances of "spear-heads," "arrow-heads," "discoidal stones," "stone beads," and "a hatchet" that have been found under precisely similar conditions as the mortars. So Mr. Becker has recently produced an affidavit of a certain Mr. Neale that in a tunnel run into the gravel in 1877 "between two hundred and three hundred feet beyond the edge of the solid lava, he saw several spear-heads nearly one foot in length."‡ Now it cannot be questioned that such objects as these clearly belong to the Neolithic period, which does not imply that all the objects used at that time were polished, but that together with chipped implements " polished stone implements were also used." # No archæologist will believe that, while Palæolithic man has not yet been discovered in the Tertiary deposits of western Europe, the works of Neolithic man have

* Le Conte, op. cit., p. 614.

+ Professor George Frederick Wright, Prehistoric Man on the Pacific Coast, Atlantic Monthly, April, 1891, p. 512; Table Mountain Archæology, Nation, May 21, 1891, p. 419.

Antiquities from under Tuolome Table Mountain in California, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. ii, p. 192. #Le Conte, op. cit., p. 607.

been found in similar deposits in western America. Peculiar difficulties seem to surround the evidence brought forward in support of such an assumption. We are told by Professor Whitney that a stone mortar was "found standing upright, and the pestle was in it, in its proper place, just as it had been left by the owner." He fails, however, to explain how this was brought about in a gravel deposit supposed to have been laid down by great floods of water. So, when Mr. Neale swears that he saw fifteen years ago in the same gravels spear-heads a great deal larger than those known to archæologists, may we not ask whether reliance can be placed on the memory of witnesses who testify to impossibilities to justify conclusions that rest upon such testimony?

I think we shall have to wait for further and better evidence than this before we are called upon to admit that the existence of the Tertiary man upon our Pacific coast has been established.

Brown, on glaciers of Greenland, 40, Charpentier, 9, 59.