GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. 89 



EXPERIENCES WITH EARLY MAN IN AMERICA. 



By Charles H. Steenbeng, Lawrence, Kan. 

 Read before the Academy, at Topeka, January 1, 1903. 



\ S there are constantly, at present, newspaper stories of early man, 

 -^-^ based on the remarkable relics found in the river drift near Lan- 

 sing, it has occurred to me that it might be of interest to lell of some 

 of my experiences in a much older field, as well as a discovery I made 

 that I have always considered of great scientific \^alue, in the Pleisto- 

 cene of Washington. As I will be obliged to repeat what I have to 

 say on "Pliocene Man" from a paper I wrote for Popular Science 

 News, I will first speak of Pleistocene man in Washington. 



In the winter of 1877 I learned from an army surgeon that a great 

 excitement had occurred in the Pine creek region of eastern Wash- 

 ington by the discovery there, in what the natives call mud springs, 

 of some well-preserved skeletons of the hairy mammoth. I started at 

 once for that field, and learned that a man who had lost a cow had 

 followed the usual custom of probing with a long pole the various 

 springs on his range, in order to see whether she had gone into one, 

 and thus avoid the necessity (if she had) of making a long tramp in 

 search of her. The point of his pole seemed to enter a small hole, 

 like the occiijital foramen of a large skull. He had some grappling- 

 hooks made on the end of a strong iron rod, and with the assistance 

 of his neighbors dislodged the skull, for so the object proved to be 

 when brought to the surface. The huge proportions of the skull as- 

 tonished the wliole country round. A showman chanced to be in 

 reach, and, during the high tide of popular wonder, purchased it for 

 the snug little sum of $1000, put it under canvas, and realized rich 

 returns from his venture. The men in the vicinity concluded there 

 was a greater fortune in draining their swamps and exhuming extinct 

 elephants than in raising wheat, and so went to work as fossil-hunters. 

 One man, I learned, mortgaged his farm to raise funds for draining a 

 large swamp on his place, and got a fine collection of these extinct 

 creatures. But the popular excitement had ebbed, and there was not 

 a convenient showman around to invest in elephant bones ; so he was 

 forced to place them on exhibition at a college in Forest Grove, Ore., 

 receiving in return the free tuition of his son. Of course he lost his 

 farm . 



I at once, after looking over the ground and selecting a site, with 

 the assistance of two men, began the work of draining a spring a few 

 yards from Pine creek. Here, as in all the swamps in the region, 



