454 SUPPEMENTARY FACTS. . 
there can be no doubt. For instance, there is a curious relic ‘on the 
Columbia in the shape of a stone idol with three human faces, or, I should 
say, three attempts at representing human faces in stone. * * * 
It is now used for a hitching-post by a settler. I have never seen it myself, 
but give the facts on the authority of an officer of our service, who both 
saw and sketched it”. 
There are two legends, noted in place, one among the Karok and one 
among the Palligawonap, which, in my opinion, are a corrupted version of 
some old ethnic myth, and therefore point to a descent from tribes superior 
to the present. 
I do not forget that the Indians, almost with one accord, attribute these 
superior stone implements to a race older and other than their own. There 
is also a Nishinam legend, which cannot be very well explained except on 
the supposition of a reference to an earlier race, from whom their forefathers 
suffered grewsome damage. On the other hand, they all insist that their 
progenitors were created from the soil where they now live (to take all their 
accounts, there must have been at least a hundred of these ‘special crea- 
tions” in California), so that their legends are not consistent. 
The theory of degeneration above advanced is quite in accord with the 
climatic changes and the deforestation which have taken place on this coast 
even within the historical period. We know, from the statements of Viscayno 
and other early Spanish explorers, that extensive forests were flourishing 
near San Diego and Monterey three hundred years ago, where now there 
are none. Viscayno, as quoted by Cronise, says the natives of Santa Cat- 
alina Island had large wooden canoes, capable of sea-voyages, whereas that 
island is now almost treeless. Fossil remains have been discovered in South- 
ern California and Arizona which indicate that there were once heavy forests 
where now are barren wind-swept plains. Ruins of great walled cities and 
large systems of irrigating ditches in Arizona and New Mexico, on the Gila, 
Little Colorado, De Chaco, San Juan, and other streams, plainly show that 
these regions once contained an agricultural population, who were ultimately 
driven out by the ever-increasing drought and the failure of the streams. 
The great Sequoias, on the high Sierra, may perhaps be the last lingerers of 
