NO. 3 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, IQI5 73 
of aboriginal quarries on the Dry Muddy, a branch of Willow Creek, 
in northern Platte County, Wyoming. These pits take their name 
from a local belief, still prevailing, which credits the Spanish con- 
querors with having made the excavations in their untiring search 
for gold. Although but one day was spent in the Willow Creek 
basin, it is quite evident that the “ Spanish Diggings ” are nothing 
more than pits left by the aboriginal inhabitants of the region in 
their efforts to obtain suitable stone from which arrow-points, blades, 
and other chipped artifacts might be made. Most of the quar- 
ries are in exposures of fine-grained, bluish quartzite and may be 
traced over an area nearly 50 miles square. In every valley and 
upon almost all the low hills which divide the stream courses are 
countless tipi circles, the former camp sites of wandering bands of 
Indians, in and about which are innumerable chipped scrapers, blades, 
etc., and vast quantities of artifacts rejected during the manufactur- 
ing process, all of stone quarried from such exposed rock masses 
as the * Spanish Diggings.” 
TRIP TO THE CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF MINNESOTA 
In May of 1915, Dr. Ales Hrdli¢ka, curator of the division of 
physical anthropology in the U. S. National Museum, made a rapid 
but rather extended trip over the White Earth and Leech Lake 
Reservations in Minnesota, under the auspices of the Department of 
Justice. 
The object of this trip was to determine, as far as possible, the 
extent of full-bloods and mixed-bloods in the tribe, and especially 
to pass on the status in this respect of certain families and individuals. 
About five years ago the United States Congress passed a law 
enabling mixed-blood Indians to alienate their land and timber, but 
did not sufficiently define what constituted a mixed-blood, that is, 
how he could be safely recognized as such in every instance before 
the law. As soon as this law was passed the local lumber companies 
and white settlers took full advantage of the situation, with the 
result that in a few years hundreds of Indian families and individuals 
were practically destitute, and those who were induced to sell included 
not only the easily recognizable mixed-bloods, but also quite a number 
of those who claimed to be full-bloods, or who could not by any 
ordinary means be recognized as having any white blood in their 
veins. Moreover, in some of these cases the sale of the timber or 
land by the Indians was obtained by misrepresentation and even by 
actual fraud. 
