AURIFEROUS GRAVEL MAN IN CALIFORNIA. 445 



OBVIOUS SOURCES OF ERROR. 



It was not expected that a short visit to the auriferous gravel region 

 would lead to a tinal settlement of the whole question of auriferous 

 gravel man, for the task is a most difficult one. The recorded ol>serva- 

 tions on which the hypothesis of a Tertiary man is based can not he 

 made over again or satisfactorily tested, and new observations of a 

 crucial nature must necessarily materialize very slowly. However, 

 a reasonably intimate knowledge of the region and its phenomena was 

 gained, and a foundation was laid for future research and for intelli- 

 gent judgment as to the value of the extensive l)ody of testimony 

 already on record. 



On reaching the mining region attention was turned first toward the 

 nature, age, and relations of the gravel deposits to the topographic- 

 character of the district, and to the profound changes brought about 

 b}^ the mining operations. Thanks to the thorough work done ])v our 

 geologists, all of these matters were readily mastered, and nothing- 

 need be added to what has been said respecting them in preceding 

 paragraphs. 



In the second place, a study of the implements and utensils, ancient 

 and modern, of the general region was made in order that comparisons 

 might be instituted between them and the gravel finds. The results of 

 this comparison have already been referred to, but further mention of 

 the topic will later be made. 



A third line of investigation related to the distribution of the abo- 

 riginal tribes and their relation to the mining areas and mines, and in 

 this direction very significant observations were made. Indian village 

 sites are scattered over the hills and table-lands, and ancient Indian 

 sites were found ever3^where. At Nevada Cit}-, Nevada County, a 

 Digger Indian (Shoshonean stock) village was encountered on the 

 margin of the table-land overlooking the great gravel mines a mile 

 west of the city. Its people were engaged in gathering acorns and 

 grinding them in mortars of various shapes. Some of the mortars 

 were worn in outcropping masses of granite, or in large, loose bowl- 

 ders, while others consisted of flatfish or globular masses of stone 

 more or less modified in shape by artificial means, and it was realized 

 that, as the hydraulic work progressed in the mine below, this site 

 might be undermined, and that one by one the utensils would drop in 

 and become intermingled with the crumbling gravels, possibly to be 

 recovered later with every appearance of having been embedded with 

 these deposits when they were laid down unnumbered centuries before. 

 One of the mortars reported ))y Whitney was obtained from a mine on 

 the western slope of this same hill, and it is easy to see how it could 

 have rolled in from an Indian camp site above, either before or during 

 the prosecution of mining operations. The conditions observed here 



