22 
better class of Mexicans, their 
father having been a Mexican or 
Spaniard. This woman is proba- 
bly the only living pure blooded 
native south of 24 degrees 30 min- 
utes. 
The Indians of Lower Califor- 
nia south of 24 degrees 30 minutes 
buried their dead in caves below 
shelving rocks, without regard to 
the points of the compass, usually 
painting the bones, but how they 
made the bones clean and ready 
to be painted is still unknown. At 
Zorillo we were shown a small 
cave in a granite rock by our local 
guide, who said that an Italian 
collector, several years before, had 
found bones of a “gentile,” the 
Mexican name for an Indian or 
heathen. 
The sand in the cave was dry, 
coarse disintegrated granite, about 
a foot deep. By digging in it I 
found the well preserved skeleton 
of an adult male Indian, who was 
perhaps the last of the Pericues. 
This skeleton was wrapped in 
cloth made from the bark of the 
palm and bound with three ply 
cord which had been plaited as 
sailors make sennit, the material 
being fiber of the agave. Dr. W. 
H. Dall mentionsin the Smithso- 
nian contributions to knowledge, 
number 318, that the mummies of 
the Aleutian Islands, were bound 
with cord quite similarly braided 
in square sennit. 
The package, which was about 
twenty inches long, did not appear 
to have been disturbed since bur- 
ial, although a femur and some 
small bones were missing, and 
nearly all of the bones had been 
unjointed. The bones of the hand 
THE WEST-AMERICAN SCIENTIST. 
were inside of the skull, which 
was full of small bones and sand. 
Meanwhile Dr. Ten Kate found 
the skeleton of a girl about twelve 
years old. This was also in excel- 
lent condition, although differing 
from those found elsewhere, in not ~ 
having been painted, a rare excep- 
tion. For the skeletons found by 
Dr. Ten Kate on Espiritu Santo 
Island, at Encenada and Los Mar- 
tires, which he kindly allowed me 
to inspect, had all been painted the 
usual brick red, with the excep- 
tion of one the Doctor found at 
Los Martires which hada skull of 
very inferior, almost idiotie form. 
The few bones we afterwards 
found ina cave near Candelario 
and several skeletons found at San 
Pedro by Dr. H. Ten Kate had 
also been painted. All of the 
skulls were of one general form, 
namely, the pyramidal—high, long 
narrow, with wide, prominent 
cheek bones. 
The only ornaments, or other 
objects of aboriginal handiwork 
found with the skeletons, were two 
small, neatly worked, pearl oyster 
shells, which were in the package 
with the boues of the young gitl 
found at Zorillo. These shells 
had been polished on the convex 
side, the edges finely serrated and 
pierced at the apex as if to be 
suspended about the person for 
ornament. 
ee Pe 
Our readers are presented this 
month with a very valuable table 
computed from thirteen years 
observation at the signal service 
of this place, and for which we 
are indebted to the kindness of 
J.C. Sprigg, Jr., Sergt. S. S. 
