46 



THE DESERT 



bases of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto 

 Ranges there are indications of cave-dwelling, 

 rock-built squares that doubtless were fortified 

 camps, heaps of stone that might have been 

 burial-mounds. Everywhere along the ancient 

 shores and beaches you pick up pieces of pot- 

 tery, broken ollas, stone pestels and mortars, 

 axe - heads, obsidian arrow - heads, flint spear- 

 points, agate beads. There is not the slightest 

 doubt that the shores were inhabited. It was 

 a warm nook, accessible to the mountains and 

 the Pacific ; in fact, just the place where 

 tribes would naturally gather. Branches of 

 the Yuma Indians, like the Cocopas, overran 

 all this country when the Padres first crossed 

 the desert ; and it was probably their fore- 

 fathers who lived by the shores of this Upper 

 Gulf. No doubt they were fishermen, traders 

 and fighters, like their modern representatives 

 on Tiburon Island ; and no doubt they fished 

 and fought and were happy by the shores of 

 the mountain-locked sea. 



But there came a time when there was a dis- 

 turbance of the existing conditions in the Up- 

 per Gulf. Century after century the Colorado 

 River had been carrying down to the sea its 

 burden of sedimental sand and silt. It had 



