NO. 3 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I915 7I 



of aboriginal quarries on the Dry Muddy, a branch of Willow Creek, 

 in northern Platte County, Wyoming. These pits take their name 

 from a local belief, still prevailing", which credits the Spanish con- 

 querors with having made the excavations in their untiring search 

 for gold. Although but one day was spent in the Willow Creek 

 basin, it is quite evident that the " Spanish Diggings " are nothing 

 more than pits left by the aboriginal inhabitants of the region in 

 their eiTorts to obtain suitable stone from which arrow-points, blades, 

 and other chipped artifacts might be made. Alost of the quar- 

 ries are in exposures of fine-grained, bluish quartzite and may be 

 traced over an area nearly 50 miles square. In every valley and 

 upon almost all the low hills which divide the stream courses are 

 countless tipi circles, the former camp sites of wandering bands of 

 Indians, in and about which are innumerable chipped scrapers, blades, 

 etc., and vast quantities of artifacts rejected during the manufactur- 

 ing process, all of stone (juarried from such exposed rock masses 

 as the " Spanish Diggings." 



TRIP TO THE CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF MINNESOTA 



In May of 1915, Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, curator of the division of 

 physical anthropology in the U. S. National Museum, made a rapid 

 but rather extended trip over the White Earth and Leech Lake 

 Reservations in Minnesota, under the auspices of the Department of 

 Justice. 



The object of this trip was to determine, as far as possible, the 

 extent of full-bloods and mixed-bloods in the tribe, and especially 

 to pass on the status in this respect of certain families and individuals. 



About five years ago the I'nited States Congress passed a law 

 enabling mixed-blood Indians to alienate their land and timber, but 

 did not sufficiently define what constituted a mixed-blood, that is, 

 how he could be safely recognized as such in every instance before 

 the law. As soon as this law was passed the local lumber companies 

 and white settlers took full advantage of the situation, with the 

 result that in a few years hundreds of Indian families and individuals 

 were practically destitute, and those who were induced to sell included 

 not only the easily recognizable mixed-bloods, but also quite a number 

 of those who claimed to be full-bloods, or who could not by any 

 ordinary means be recognized as having any white blood in their 

 veins. Moreover, in some of these cases the sale of the timber or 

 land by the Indians was obtained by misrepresentation and even by 

 actual fraud. 



