The Shoshone Island. 89 



Now all of these leaves, fragments of wood 

 and pieces of bone are enough different from 

 the leaves and bones of to-day to prove them 

 belonging to other times, for they tell the 

 story of other forms of life than ours. It is 

 the great number and variety of these fossil 

 remains of former life, interspersed through- 

 out these three thousand feet of sedimentary 

 rock, that gives this old lake bed its marvel- 

 ous interest. 



One is liable at any turn in a ravine to 

 find protruding from its ledges a fragment of 

 a skull, a bone or a tooth, ranging from those 

 of a squirrel to those of a horse. But all these 

 underground records are remains of life 

 that once abode above ground, and so really 

 describe the former inhabitants of the Sho- 

 shone island and its environment of lakes. 



If now from our point of outlook on the 

 crest of Kern Creek hill, looking eastward, 

 we may imagine the waters of that lake re- 

 turned until they submerged the whole of the 

 John Day basin, we might see across these 

 returned waters fifty miles away the ancient 



