AUEIFEROUS GRAVEL MAN IN CALIFORNIA. 453 



touch them or even to speak about them; but finally, when asked 

 whether they had any idea whence they came, said they had seen such 

 implements far away in the mountains, but declined to speak of the 

 place further or to undertake to procure others. This statement by 

 Mr. Neale struck me at once as interesting and significant, and 1 was 

 not surprised when a few days later it was learned that obsidian ])lades 

 of identical pattern were now and then found with Digger Indian 

 remains in the burial pits of the region. The inference to be drawn 

 from these facts is that the implements brought to Mr. Neale had been 

 obtained from some one of the burial places in the vicinity by the 

 miners, who found no spot too sacred to be invaded in the eager search 

 for gold. Ati additional inference is that the Indians were aware of 

 the origin of the specimens and were afraid of them because of the 

 mortal dread that eve^T Indian feels of anything connected with the 

 dead. How the eleven large spearheads got into the mine, or whether 

 they ever came from the mine at all, are queries that I shall not 

 assume to answer, Ijut that the}^ came from the bed of a Tertiary 

 torrent seems highly improbable; for how could a cache of eleven 

 slender, leaf-like implements remain unscattered under these condi- 

 tions; how could fragile glass blades stand the crushing and grinding 

 of a torrent bed; or how could so large a number of brittle blades 

 remain unbroken under the pick of the miner working in a dark 

 tunnel^ For, as Dr. Becker states, "The auriferous gravel is hard 

 picking; in large part it requires blasting." 



That the affidavit of Mr. Neale does not materially strengthen the 

 evidence favoring antiquity I am now fully convinced. In his con- 

 versation with me he did not claim to have been in the mine when the 

 finds were made, and a sworn statement vouching for th(> ti-utli of 

 assertions made ])y other persons, and these other persons unnamed 

 miners, can not be of value in establishing a proposition reciuiring 

 proofs of the very highest order. That the other like finds of the Table 

 Mountain region, recorded by Whitney, are Cipially open to criticism 

 may reasonably be assumed. 



The King Pestle.— T\^q only bit of testimony that may not be chal- 

 lenged with impunity is the finding of a fragmentary pcstli' in the 

 face of Table Mountain 2 or 8 miles north of the Montezuma mine by 

 Mr. Clarence King and reported in detail and with an illustration 

 in Dr. Becker's paper (p. 193), already referred to. Dr. Becker says: 



'^\nother unpu])lished discovery has also been made in these gravels, 

 which will ])e in so far more satisfactory to the members of this 

 societv, that the discoverer is well known personally to most of them 

 and bV reputation to everv geologist. In the spi-ing of 1S61> ^Ir. 

 Clarence King visited the portion of the Table Mountain which lies 

 a coui)le of niTles southeast of Tuttletown, and therefore near Rawhide 

 camp, to search for fossils in the auriferous gravels. At one point, 

 close to the high bluti' of basalt rapping, a recent wash had swept 



