These conclusions have been sustained in a very marked manner by late discoveries in the valley of the Delaware, to which we will now refer. After reaching the conclusion that the relics of the Stone Age in New Jersey clearly pointed to a Paleolithic beginning, when argillite, the most easily attainable stone, was utilized in the manufacture of weapons and implements, Dr. Abbott made the further discovery that in the ancient gravels of the Delaware River Paleolithic implements only were to be found. We must remember that it was in the gravels of European rivers that the first discoveries were made which have since resulted in so wonderfully extending our knowledge of the past of man.
The city of Trenton, New Jersey, is built on a gravel terrace whose surface is between forty and fifty feet above the flood plain of the Delaware. We are told that this gravel is clearly a river deposit, and must have been laid down by the Delaware at some former time in its history. It is in this gravel deposit that quite a large number of Paleolithic implements have been found.
This cut is a representation of one of them, found under such circumstances that there can be no question about its antiquity. We are told it was taken from the face of the bluff fronting the river. Owing to heavy rains, a large section off of the front of the bluff became detached just the day before this specimen was discovered. It was found in the fresh surface thus exposed, twenty-one feet from the surface, almost at the bottom of the gravel. Immediately above it, and in contact with it, was a bowlder estimated to weigh over one hundred pounds. Immediately above this last was a second and much larger bowlder. It is manifest the implements could never have gotten in the place found after the gravel had been deposited.54
This is only one of the many examples that could be given. But it is to be noticed that implements of the Neolithic type do not occur in the gravel, except on the surface. Dr. Abbott is not the only one who has found those implements. Many of our best American scholars have visited the locality and secured specimens, amongst others, Prof. Boyd Dawkins, of England, who is so familiar with this class of relics in Europe. We may consider it proven, then, that in this country there was also a Paleolithic Age. Our present information in regard to it is only a beginning.