APPENDIX. 345 



the remarks on these in the text were written, I have seen a 

 memoir by Professor Whitney, in which he re-states the evi- 

 dence which he believes exists for the occurrence of man in 

 California in Pliocene times. After carefully weighing it, I 

 must say that it appears to me altogether inconclusive, for the 

 following among other reasons : 



1. None of the specimens, either of bones or implements, 

 appear to have been seen in situ by any competent scientific 

 observer, and most of them are open to the gravest doubts as 

 to the undisturbed character of the material. Even the 

 Calaveras skull' was found in a shaft now full of water, and 

 the facts respecting it were collected some time after its 

 discovery. 



2. The age of the deposits is not certainly known ; but from 

 the remains of plants and animals found in them they would 

 seem to date from the period of the Pliocene Tertiary, when 

 the fauna and flora of the' American land were quite different 

 from the present, before the glacial period, and before the 

 main valleys of the Pacific slope were cut out. It is very 

 unlikely that man can be the sole survivor of the fauna of this 

 distant period. 



3. This improbability is increased by the fact that the skull 

 discovered, while American in form, is of large size and of better 

 development than those of the modern rude tribes of Califor- 

 nia, and that the implements found are similar to those of the 

 semi-civilized agriculturists and miners formerly inhabiting 

 some parts of the West. Further, it is well known that many 

 shafts and mines have been excavated in these gravels both 

 before and after the European conquest. 



4. The manner in which Whitney accounts for the occurrence 

 of the Calaveras skull is so fanciful and improbable, that it 

 throws doubt on the whole of his conclusions. To show this, I 

 shall quote, at some length, his own words, premising that this 

 skull is believed to have been taken from a shaft, at Paid 

 Mountain, sunk through beds of gravel and lava, amounting 

 in thickness to 130 feet : 



"The skull was unquestionably dug up somewhere, and had 

 unquestionably been subjected to quite a series of peculiar con- 



