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THE AUPJFEEOUS GRAVELS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 



ing implements of stone were discovered, imbedded in the auriferous gravel, at a depth of about 

 ten feet below the surface. The implements consisted of large stone mortars, with pestles, and 

 spear and arrow heads made of obsidian. One of these spear heads, in Mr. Voy's collection, is 

 about six inches long and three wide, and rather roughly made. One of the largest stone mortars 

 ever met with in the State was found here. It was made of granite, eighteen inches high and 

 thirty-six in circumference, weighing over fifty pounds. 



Other localities in Mariposa County where stone implements are reported to have been found 

 are : Three miles north of Mariposa (town), in various mining claims ; at Indian Gulch, a few 

 miles south of Mariposa ; near O'Neal's quartz mill, two miles south of the Buckeye Ravine. 



MERCED COUNTY. 



In the vicinity of Snelling numerous stone implements are said to have been found in the gravel 

 at various times. 



STANISLAUS COUNTY. 



A tusk and some of the molar teeth of the elephant were found, in 1870, at Dry Creek, nine 

 miles south of Knight's Ferry, and are now preserved in the Voy Collection. The tusk is ten 

 feet long and thirty-six inches in diameter at the base. These remains are said to have been taken 

 from a depth of thirty-seven feet below the surface, where they were found imbedded in hard 

 " cement gravel." It is also stated that numerous stone implements have been discovered in this 

 county, at various points, in the gravel workings. There are no particulars in the writer's posses- 

 sion, however, in regard to these occurrences. 



TUOLUMNE COUNTY. 



We come now to a region which has been more prolific in human remains and works of art than 

 any other in California. Some of the more important localities where these things have been 

 found will be noticed on the map of the Table Mountain Flow (Plate D). Dr. Perez Snell, of 

 Sonora, made a large collection of fossils obtained in that vicinity, for many years the scene of the 

 greatest activity in placer and tunnel mining. This collection, now dispersed or destroyed by fire, 

 it is believed, was several times examined by the writer, and valuable items of information obtained 

 in regard to some of the objects it contained, as will be mentioned farther on. Mr. Voy also spent 

 considerable time in this region, and secured a large amount of evidence bearing on the question 

 of the truth of the supposed occurrence of human remains in the uncovered gravels, as well as 

 beneath the basaltic capping of Table Mountain, so often referred to in the previous pages. 



The first information of importance obtained by the writer in regard to the antiquity of man in 

 California and his coexistence with extinct mammals was procured, in 1863, at Gold Springs, a 

 little west of Columbia. Mr. Lot Cannell, a native of Bangor, Maine, stated that he had in the 

 course of his mining operations, in that vicinity, found stone mortars and " platters " in the same 

 stratum with the bones and teeth of the mastodon, an animal with which some of the, miners 

 in that locality had been quite familiar, on account of the repeated finding of its remains as 

 already mentioned. The objects discovered had all been destroyed by a fire ; but there was no 

 reason to doubt the correctness of Mr. Canncll's statement, and it became evident to the writer, 

 from repeated conversations with him, that he was a man of intelligence and a careful observer. 



o 



This was the beginning of a long chain of evidence which has been gradually accumulating during 

 the past sixteen years, and for publishing which the writer has been patiently waiting the proper 

 occasion. Already, however, in 1865, there had been a sufficient number of facts collected of a 

 similar kind to that mentioned above, to justify the statement made in Geology I.,* " thai it is 



* See Geology I. p. 252. 



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