It is generally understood that the earliest reported gravel finds of importance were made on the banks of Assanpink creek within the city limits of Trenton, where the gravels to a thickness of twenty feet or more were exposed in a railway cutting. Later the river bluff near the lower end of the city, where the gravels were exposed to a depth of from twenty-five to forty feet, yielded large numbers. These two sites, so far as I can learn, furnished at least three-fourths of the finds in place. Other specimens were found singly in slight natural exposures, and in excavations for cellars, sewers, etc., at various points within the city limits.
The river bluff was for a considerable period the favorite hunting ground of the searchers for rudely flaked stones, and many specimens were collected. The gravels were exposed in a steep, nearly straight bank, several hundred yards in length, the base of which was washed by the river. There can be no question that Dr. Abbott and others have found shaped objects of various classes upon and in the face of this river bluff, and the visitor to-day, although the bluff is now buried almost completely under city refuse, will hardly fail to find some rudely flaked form in the deeper gullies or upon the narrow river bank or beach at the base. Dr. Abbott explicitly states[1] that he obtained certain of these specimens from the gravel outcrops, and that they were not in talus formations, but in undisturbed deposits. How then is it possible to do otherwise than accept these statements as satisfactory and final?
[1] Abbott, C. C. Primitive Industry, pp. 493-510.
Fig. 1. Sketch map of the Trenton bluff, showing the relation of the sewer trench to the "implement" yielding slope.... a-b section line, [Fig. 2].
Very recently, however, fortunate circumstances have brought the evidence furnished by this site again within our reach, thus enabling us to re-open the discussion under favorable conditions. What I had for some time desired to do in this case was, what I had already done at Piny Branch, D. C., and at Little Falls, Minn., to open a trench into the face of the bluff, and thus secure evidence for or against the theory of a gravel man. This measure was, however, rendered impracticable by the occupation of the bluff margin by a city street; but it happened last summer that the city authorities, desiring to improve the sanitary condition of the city, decided to open a great sewer through this very bluff to get a lower outlet to the river. A trench twelve feet wide and some thirty feet deep, the full depth of the exposed gravels, was carried along the bluff just inside of its margin, opening out into the river at the point where the bluff turns toward the north-east. It was a trenching more complete and more satisfactory than any of which I had ever dreamed. At no point for the entire length of the bluff did the excavation depart more than forty feet from the line of the terrace face—from the upper margin of the slope upon which such plentiful evidence of a supposed gravel man had been obtained. The accompanying map and section, Figs. 1 and 2, will indicate the location of the trench, and show the exact relations of the natural and artificial exposures of the gravels.
Fig. 2. Sections made by the river and by the sewer, the former yielding many "implements," the latter yielding none.