GEOLOGY. 2.37 



thinly laminated beds containing often vegetable stems and im- 

 pressions of leaves, indicating deposition in quiet water, wiiile 

 other portions are made up of coarse, gravelly masses, compacted 

 often into a firm, coherent mass. From the ancient river-bed to 

 the top of the basaltic capping of Table Mountain is not less than 

 300 feet. 



It is beneath this mass of matter, partly aqueous and parti}" vol- 

 canic in its origin, that the remains of mastodon have been found. 

 He gives a letter from Mr. D. T. Hughes, stating that the remains 

 of mastodon were found in a tunnel 1,650 feet in under Table 

 Mountain, and 4^ feet above the ledge or bottom slate, imbedded 

 in a stratum of sand overlying a deposit of gold-bearing gravel, 

 and scattered over a space 20 feet long by 10 or 12 feet wide. 

 Most of the bones were very soft, and the tasks, which measured 

 over 7 feet in length, much decayed ; the teeth were well pre- 

 served. 



From INIr. Hughes' description and accompanying drawings it 

 is concluded tiiat "there is no room to doubt that the bones dis- 

 covered are those of the mastodon, and it appears probable that 

 nearly the entire skeleton of a full-sized animal was entombed in 

 the sands resting immediately upon the ancient auriferous gravel 

 beneath the Table Mountains, and, of course, anterior in age to 

 the period of volcanic activity and overflows of lava which have 

 hitherto been considered as marking the close of the pliocene era, — 

 a catastrophe which appears to have exterminated the other mem- 

 bers of the pliocene fauna. If the mastodon survived the catas- 

 trophe wliich exterminated the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, tapir, 

 etc., and continued through the post-pliocene to the appearance 

 of man, it yet remains to be proved that man was his companion 

 prior to the dawn of the existing epoch." 



According to Prof. Silliman ("American Journal of Science," 

 Sept., 1868), four molar teeth of mastodon were found in the same 

 geological horizon as the alleged Calaveras skull. They carry 

 the mastodon down to a lower level than has before been assigned 

 to it in California. " It has been the belief hitherto that the great 

 catastrophe of the volcanic outpourings which buried the Table 

 Mountains of Calaveras and Tuolumne counties in California htid 

 extinguished all the pre-existing races, and that the mastodon had 

 never been certainly discovered below that horizon. This view is 

 no longer tenable, and the mastodon is here conclusively shown to 

 reach quite to the base of the deep-lying gold placers; and, if the 

 Calaveras skull stands the test of subsequent investigation, man 

 was his companions in those early days." 



FOSSIL MAN. 



Signor J. Cocchi, in a recent work on "Fossil Man of Central 

 Italy," describes the post-pliocene and recent deposits of this 

 region, and the pliocene strata of the Val d'Arno and Val di 

 Chiana, with the fossil mammals, mollusks, and plants obtained 

 from the latter. The recent deposits he divides into modern, 

 22* 



