APPENDIX. 347 



deposited in one place along with pieces of charcoal and a snail 

 shell, seems quite incredible.* If the supposition had been 

 that the whole body, with its dress and ornaments, was drifted 

 down, or that it was a fossil from some older deposit already 

 sealed up in a hard nodule, the theory would be more cohe- 

 rent, though still not quite in accordance with the facts. As 

 it is, supposing the shell to have been found as alleged, the 

 whole appearances are those of an interment, or of loss of life 

 In some old shaft or tunnel, and this is rendered the more 

 likely by the fact insisted on by Whitney, that the surrounding 

 beds belong to a time when the " animal and vegetable crea- 

 tions differed entirely from what they are now": that is, 

 always excepting the modern Indian and modern snail. 



5. The so-called "fossilised" condition of the skull proves 

 nothing. That it contains, as shown by analysis, 62 per cent, 

 of calcium carbonate, implies merely that the pores and can- 

 cellated structure of the bone have been infiltrated with that 

 substance after decay of the animal matter, and this under 

 favourable conditions would not require a long time. 



The above reasons are, I think, quite sufficient to warrant 

 any geologist in declining to accept the human remains of the 

 California gravels as other than those of American Indians 

 of the modern periods. 



MEN OF THE GRAVELS AND CAVERNS. 



It will be observed that I do not regard the distinction 

 recently insisted on by Dawkins between the men of the river 

 gravels and those of the caverns as valid in a general sense. 

 Tribes dwelling on river banks or coasts during summer, 

 would naturally resort to caverns in winter, if such shelters 

 were accessible. Cave-dwellers would resort to river banks 

 and shores to chip flints, which they might more carefully 

 work up at home. Rude invaders might occupy river valleys 



* It would seem that the name of the locality, Calaveras, means a place 

 of skulls, and that loose skulls and bones are found in the Calaveras Biver. 

 It would be interesting to know the age and source of these, and their con- 

 nection, if any, with the Calaveras skull. 



