32 CHANNEL ISLANDS OF CALIFORNIA 



of the articles needed by a white. There were hooks, 

 Hnes, sinkers, balls, rings, needles, awls, toys, money, 

 paint, paint pots, beads, jewelry cases, drinking and 

 other cups, also cups of pottery with ornamentations, 

 such as a snake. There were beautiful arrows, spears, 

 hooks of pearl, long ceremonial stone clubs, lucky 

 stones, and numerous implements whose use is un- 

 known or a matter of speculation. 



One paramount advantage these natives had was 

 the steatite quarry at Empire Landing. Here was a 

 soft stone from which they cut their mortars, which 

 they took over to the mainland in their big canoes and 

 sold to the mainland natives. I have seen these mor- 

 tars, of all kinds and sizes, and some were very 

 attractive. I found several places in the bush where 

 they were made. Some of the mortars had been left 

 half cut off, the plan of the workers being to chip out 

 a mortar with their rude implements until it resembled 

 a ball the size of a man's head or larger, connected by a 

 small stem. This sphere was knocked or broken off, 

 and then hollowed out — doubtless by women — by a 

 tedious process with stone implements, as, up to the 

 time of Cabrillo, these natives had seen no metal. All 

 their objects were of stone, shell, bone, or wood. In a 

 word, the Stone Age, at Santa Catalina, continued in 

 all its purity until 1542. I found the old quarry at 

 Empire Landing, with its myriad of flints and chips, 

 just as though the workers had been driven off and 

 forced to drop their possessions and run. There were 

 half-made mortars, others a third made, still fastened 

 to the rock, almost perfect ones in the bush hard by, 

 while the steatite ledge was covered in places with the 

 scars of mortars which had been successfully removed. 



