354 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fishing, hunting: on the water, and barter with the dwellers on the 

 mainland. To gather shell-fish the aborigines often went long dis- 

 tances, which called into existence temporary camps wherein we 

 hardly find anything but layers of shells and some burned beach- 

 rocks, indicating former fireplaces, scattered in small clusters over 

 their surface. The mollusks, after their shells had been removed, 

 were dried in such temporary camps for easier transportation to dis- 

 tant villages. 



But let us examine one of the sites of such aboriginal villages, 

 commonly termed " shell-heaps " or " shell-mounds," bleached shells 

 being by far the larger and more conspicuous part of their remains. 

 I will select one of the many stations which I have investigated for 

 the Smithsonian Institution during recent years. Its location is near 

 a narrow inlet, called Tinker's Cove, on the island of Santa Cruz, one 

 of the group in the Santa Barbara Channel {see Fig. 1). It possesses 

 all the requirements of an aboriginal settlement, only the game-ground 



Height 100 Ft. To I Inch. Distance 200. Ft Toil nch 



// ' j? -^t^ " I- -/: vz/i.- VH---: i^<>/ --/:^' \//' / /M'<- 



100 



zoo 



300 AGO 



Fig. 2. 



soo 



600 



700 FEET S0-< 



is wanting, as no animals save a small gray fox, and several species 

 of land-birds, exist on the islands. The ground upon which the station 

 is located is of a rocky, irregular structure, mostly bare and destitute 

 of vegetation ; a cove, affording an excellent boat-landing, adjoins to 

 the westward of it ; outlying rocks, of which but few appear in the 

 sketch, are covered with edible shell-fish ; a mass of kelp and sea- 

 weed grows in the adjoining waters, and is thickly stocked with fish ; 

 a spring of potable water is found in the deepest part of the cove. 

 Sand is found only at a distance of between four and five hundred 

 yards to the eastward, in a small hidden beach of the narrow fiord 

 of Tinker's Cove, which is of very difficult access by land, as the sides 

 of the inlet form walls of over one hundred feet in height, and in 

 larger quantities farther away to the westward of the station. It is, 



