280 CALIFORNIA MAMMALS. 



Few regions of similar extent to California can show a great- 

 er number of contemporaneous native dialects. This seems to 

 have been the results of a very early immigration and settlement 

 of small tribes or fragments of tribes combined with a strong 

 home-loving trait, which may have been a late development. When 

 found by the whites the Indians did not seem to care to travel 

 and mingle with their neighbors and each tribe and often each 

 community had a dialect of its own. According to the latest map 

 of the Bureau of Ethnology these dialects were grouped in twenty 

 one linguistic stocks, the total number of North American stocks 

 being about sixty-five. The names and distribution of the Cali- 

 fornia linguistic stocks are given on the accompanying map. 



The cjuestion of the derivation of the race of American In- 

 dians has interested many persons. Where the original cradle of 

 the human race was, probably will never be positively decided. It 

 is usually supposed to have been in Asia, yet it may possibly have 

 been in America. It is probable that the dispersion of races oc- 

 cured in pre-glacial times from a well populated circumpolar re- 

 gion. Glaciation slowly forced the inhabitants from the polar 

 regions toward the tropics, and the cold and ice separated the in- 

 habitants of America from those of Europe and America. The 

 difference in construction of the languages of the two continents 

 indicates that this separation occured in a very early stage of 

 language formation. With the melting of the ice and the retreat 

 of the glaciers, which is still progressing, the tribes of Indians 

 nearest the vacated region were able to move slowly northward, al- 

 lowing other tribes to expand or follow if they chose. The high 

 Sierra Nevada range, being heavily capped with snow and ice, was 

 an impassable barrier between the interior of the continent and 

 the comparatively warm coast region of California. Probably 

 fragments of migrating tribes were forced through the passes be- 

 fore these became impassable, and could get no further. When 

 the glaciers retreated the California Indians did not follow, as 

 there was no pressure from beyond and no inducement to leave. 



Until the rush of gold seekers no great change occurred' in 



