D DEFORESTATION AND DETERIORATION—CONTRASTS. 435 
a gigantic race of forest trees, which the changed climatic conditions of 
California have destroyed from the plains. 
We know that the deforestation of Babylonia, Assyria, Palestine, and 
Greece was accompanied by a corresponding deterioration in the inhabit- 
ants, and it may have been also largely the cause of it. 
While there is nothing to show that the present race of California 
Indians are descended from an agricultural people like the New Mexican 
Pueblos, there is much to show that their predecessors were superior to 
them, and that their predecessors were also their ancestors. The California 
Indians are simply a poor copy of the people whom we usually call pre- 
histories; but the copy follows the original so closely, that there can be 
little doubt that it is a copy made by transmission. 
II.—ATHABASCAN VS. CALIFORNIAN, 
1 wish to tabulate here some facts which show more plainly than has 
been done in the Report that California has witnessed a great invasion from 
the north before the historical period. 
1. Let us start in Rogue River Valley, Oregon, and journey through 
Yreka and across the spurs of Mount Shasta down into the head of the 
great Sacramento Valley. North of Mount Shasta the languages are con- 
spicuously harsh, often guttural, and abounding in such difficult consonantal 
combinations as ks, tsk, ps, sk, ete., as in the following words from the 
Shastika and Modok: Ksup, tsi’-sup, ska'-gis, nis-wat'-ska, sna-wat'-ska (five, 
father, nine, man, woman). But south of this mountain the languages are 
largely vocalic, harmonious, and musical. The transition in crossing the 
Mount Shasta watershed is too abrupt to be explained by the gradual 
softening of the climate. The change is as sudden as it is when the trav- 
eler goes over the Spliigen Pass from the rugged and knagey German of 
Chur to the silvery accents of Milan. 
2. The deep, circular cellar (not a cellar proper, but part of the dwell- 
ig) which is found in the lodges north of Mount Shasta and on the Kla- 
math and Trinity indicates a long residence of the makers’ ancestors in a 
rigorous climate. Directly you come south of the line above-mentioned, 
this subterranean feature ceases quite abruptly, the wigwam being built on 
