HUMAN REMAINS: UNDEE TABLE MOUNTAIN. 



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understand perfectly the geological features of the point at which the discovery was made. It was 

 in the Valentine Shaft, which was sunk on the side of Table Mountain, a little south of Shaw's 

 Flat. There were several shafts ranged nearly in a line between the Flat and the summit of the 

 mountain. The Valentine Company's claim lay between the Sampson and the Columbia claims, 

 all of them working through vertical shafts. The Sampson shaft passed through six feet of sur- 

 face soil ; then forty-two of pipe-clay; then four of hard "sand cement" containing numerous 

 impressions of leaves, and bones towards the bottom of the stratum ; then under that the pay 

 gravel, nine feet in thickness. The section in the Valentine Shaft was almost identically the same 

 as that in Sampson, except that, the former being higher up on the mountain, its depth was neces- 

 sarily greater, and more of the pipe-clay had to be passed through. The essential facts arc, that 

 the Valentine Shaft was vertical, that it was boarded up to the top, so that nothing could have 

 fallen in from the surface during the working under ground, which was carried on in the gravel 



channe 



d exclusively, after the shaft had been sunk. There can be no doubt that the specimen 

 came from the drift in the channel under Table Mountain, as affirmed by Mr. Hubbs. This 

 gentleman was on the ground himself, at the time the fragment was found, and he says : " I saw 

 the portion of skull immediately after its being taken out of the sluice into which it had been 

 shovelled, and some of the marine dirt was sticking to it." By « marine dirt " is meant the pay 



gravel; Mr. Hubbs, like many other miners * at that time, having the idea that the auriferous 

 gravels were of marine origin. It is clear from Mr. Hubbs's statements that the fragment was 

 raised from the stratum of pay gravel, and that it was noticed, when the contents of the bucket 

 were dumped into the head of the sluice, and either picked up by Mr. Hubbs, or by some one else 

 who happened to be standing by, and who handed it to him on the spot. The evidence seems 

 very clear, in all respects, so far as the fact of the occurrence of human remains in the strata 

 underlying the Table Mountain basalt is concerned. Unfortunately the piece of skull preserved is 

 too small to be made the basis of any craniological investigations. 



Additional and entirely independent information in regard to the discovery of proofs of the 

 former existence of man at this locality was also obtained from Mr. Albert G. Walton, who was 

 one of the owners of the Valentine Claim, and the carpenter under whose direction the'shaft was 

 timbered, as already mentioned. According to his statement the section of the formation passed 

 through in sinking this shaft was as follows : soil, six to ten feet; pipe-clay, seventy feet; cement, 

 with fossil leaves and small branches of trees, three to four feet ; pay gravel, five to nine feet,' 

 making the total depth of the shaft from ninety to ninety-five feet. The depth of 180 feet previ- 

 ously stated by Mr. Hubbs, means the vertical distance from the surface to the workings' at the 

 end of the drift leading from the shaft to the point where the fragment of a human skull was 

 found. According to Mr. Walton, who remembers nothing of the finding of this piece of bone 

 there was a mortar found in these workings in the gravel. It was about fifteen inches in diameter 

 and, as he says, resembled those so often found in the diggings in California. Mr. Valentine on 

 the other hand, who was one of the owners of the claim, corroborated the main facts about 'the 

 position of the workings, as being in the channel under the basaltic capping, but remembered noth- 

 ing about any discovery of either bones or implements. It is clear that, had it not been for the 

 accidental presence of Mr. Hubbs on the spot, at the time the piece of skull was found, we should 



never have heard anything of it. And if Mr TTnhlv* had « * • ■* ± n ... , 



i -nuoDS Had not given it to an enthusiastic observer, 



like Dr. \Y mslow, it would probably never have come to the notice of scientific men. One should 

 bear in mind bow few of the discoveries of human relics or remains which are made arc likely 

 ever to be heard of beyond a very limited area, even under the most favorable circumstances, as is 

 well illustrated by the facts in this case. 



_ Mr. Voy was able to procure still further evidence bearing on the question of the occurrence of 

 implements under Table Mountain. This evidence is given as it came into the writer's hands, in 

 tiie form of an affidavit, duly sworn to before a magistrate : 



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* And some scientific men. Sec ante, pp. 70, 71. 



