530 HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



the Science Section of the Club — Prof. A. J. McClatchie of Throop Insti- 

 tute, chairman of the section. 



PRIME ELEMENTS OF THE ANCIENT TOWNSITE PROBLEM. 



1 . This site was on the highest point or body of land anywhere in the 

 vicinity. The land sloped from it in every directio7i. 



2. The surface was composed of materials conveyed down from the 

 mountains and canyons, just the same as the surface soil for miles around. 



3. The surface had never before been plowed or dug up or filled in by 

 man ; it was just as nature had originally piled it there. 



4. The stone-age relics were found mostly about four feet below the 

 natural surface of the ground, or varying from three and one-half to five 

 feet. The following witnesses to this fact are still living : A, O. Bristol, 

 John W. Wilson, Henry G. Bennett, J. H. Baker, Chas. H. Watts, Col. J. 

 Banbury, Hon. P. M. Green, Thomas Croft, W. T. Clapp, B. S. Eaton. 



5. No fragments of pottery were found. These pre-Pasadenians had 

 not yet acquired the art of making pottery. 



6. No worked flint was found. They had not yet acquired the art of 

 working flint, or using arrow heads or spear heads. 



7. No grooved stone axes or hammers were found. These people had 

 not yet discovered that method of attaching a stone weapon or tool to a 

 wooden handle. 



8. No specimens have been found with dish-depth sufiicient to warrant 

 their being called "mortars." These people had not yet reached that degree 

 of stone -working skill. No real "pestles" were found — only "mealing 

 stones. ' ' 



9. No indications were found that they knew the use of fire : no bits 

 of charcoal or burnt wood ; no burnt clay or sand ; no stones that showed 

 the action of fire upon them — all of which are usually found at any ancient 

 townsite within the historic period. 



10. The specimens found are true paleoliths, or early stone-age relics. 



1 1 . How came they there, and when ? 



I now address myself to solving this deep and interesting problem. 



The first four points noted above really belong together, as part of one 

 general and controlling fact, which is, that the relics were buried four or 

 more feet deep by natural causes, even though they were on the highest 

 point of land in the vicinity. They must have been originally covered 

 much deeper, for the hill had been subject to the natural washing down by 

 rains for centuries, or ever since it was segregated from the west hills by 

 the commencement of the present arroyo gulf If they had lain anywhere 

 on a slope, having higher land connected even in one direction, the washing 

 down of soil over them would have been a commonplace affair ; but the 

 conditions in this case are so different as to have required some great and 

 unusual turmoil of nature to produce them. And we must appeal to geology 

 for the explanation. 



The contour of the land, and the general conditions of bed-rock at cer- 



