as 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 creatures<39> 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>

Illustration of Implement found in Loess.-----------

Other examples are on record. In Greene County, Illinois, parties
digging a well found, at the depth of seventy-two feet, a stone hatchet.
Mr. McAdams carefully examined the well, to see if it could have dropped
from near the surface. He tells us the well was dug through loess
deposits; and from the top down was as smooth, and almost as hard, as
a cemented cistern.<41> The loess was, as in Nebraska, deposited in
the still waters of the lake which once occupied the Valley of the
Illinois.<42> And we need not doubt but that it dates from the breaking
up of the glacial ice. The position of this hatchet, then, found at the
very bottom of the loess deposits, shows that, while yet the glaciers
lingered in the north, and the flooded rivers spread out in great lakes,
some tribes of stone-using folks hunted along the banks of the lakes,
whose bottoms were to form the rich prairies of the West.

Previous to this discovery, Mr. Foster had recorded the finding in this
same formation, distant but a few miles, a rude hatchet. There was in
this case a possibility that the stone could have been shaped by natural
means, and so he did not affirm this to be a work of man; but he says,
"had it been recovered from a plowed field, I should have unhesitatingly
said it was an Indian's hatchet."<43> We think it but another instance
of relics found under such circumstances, that it points