Note 6 — Chapter I

Evidences of the Antiquity of Man in the U. S., by Col. Charles Whittlesey. A memoir of 20 pp. Perhaps the chief importance of the above-cited cave discoveries is derived from the eminence of the antiquarian who cites them, rather than in their real value to science. In the case of the Elyria cave—examined by Dr. E. W. Hubbard, Prof. J. Brainerd, and the author of the memoir—“the grindstone grit,” resting on shale, formed a grotto of considerable size. Four feet of the floor of the cave, consisting of charcoal, ashes and bones of the wolf, bear, deer, rabbit, squirrels, fishes, snakes and birds (“all of which existed in this region when it became known to the whites”), was removed and three human skeletons discovered. The author states that the three had been crushed by a large slab of the overhanging sandstone falling on them, but fails to state how much of the overlying material consisted of this sandstone slab. He remarks: “Judging from the appearance of the bones, and the depth of the accumulations over them, two thousand years may have elapsed since the human skeletons were laid on the floor of this cave.” The Louisville cave discovery is no more satisfactory than the above. It is scarcely necessary to remark that all the evidences are of a comparatively recent interment, and much less than two thousand years would have been sufficient to produce the conditions described. See also discoveries at High Rock Spring, Saratoga, N. Y., cited by Col. Whittlesey, p. 10, and more fully treated by Dr. McGuire in the “Proceedings of the Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist.,” vol. xii, p. 398, May, 1839, in which the latter claims to find traces of the Red man 5470 years ago. It is not probable that Dr. McGuire’s traces are those of the Indians, nor is it certain that they were left by human beings at all, since the pine tree (found at a considerable depth and worn as he supposes by the feet of Indians) was as liable to have been worn by the feet of animals as of men. See also Dr. Abbott, The Stone Age in New Jersey, Smithsonian Report, 1874, p. 246 et seq. See this work, pp. 127–8.