Such is Dr. Koch’s very interesting statement of this find. “It was received by the scientific world,” says Foster, “with a sneer of contempt,” and, it seems to us, for very insufficient reasons. It is admitted that his knowledge of geology was not as accurate as it should have been. He made some mistakes of this nature, which have been clearly shown.35 Still, he is known to have been a diligent collector, and we are told “no one who knew him will question but that he was a competent observer.”36 It seems to us useless to deny the truth of his statements. There is, however, nothing to necessitate us believing in an immense age for these remains. This is not to be considered a point against them, for there is no reason for supposing that the mastodon may not have lingered on to comparatively recent times, and that comparatively recent men may not have intercepted and destroyed helpless individuals. Indeed, we are told there are traditions still extant among the Indians of these monsters.37
We have other facts showing that, in this country as in Europe, man was certainly living not far from the time when the land was covered with the ice of the Glacial Age, whatever may be true of still earlier periods. We are told that, when the time came for the final breaking up of the great glaciers, and while they still lingered at the head waters of the Platte, the Missouri, and the Yellowstone rivers, a mighty lake—or, rather, a succession of lakes—occupied the greater portion of the Missouri Valley. The rivers flowing into them were of great size,38 and heavily freighted with sediment, which was deposited in the still waters of the lakes, and thus was formed the rich loess deposits of Nebraska.
From several places in this loess have been taken rude stone arrows, buried at such depths and under such circumstances, that we must conclude they were deposited there when the loess was forming. But this requires us to carry them back to a time when elephants and mastodons roamed over the land, for bones of these huge creatures39 are quite frequently found. This arrow-point —or, it may be, spear-head—was found twenty feet from the surface; and almost directly above it, and distant only thirteen inches, was a vertebra of an elephant. “It appears, then, that some old races lived around the shores of this lake, and, paddling over it, accidentally dropped their arrows, or let them fly at a passing water-fowl;” and, from the near presence of the elephant’s bone, it is shown that man here, as well as in Europe, was the contemporary of the elephant, in at least a portion of the Missouri Valley.40