May 31, 1901.] 
clearly indicated by color and by small rough 
clay-iron residuum when weathered. Fossils 
occurred most frequently in those deposits and 
one became aware of their discontinuity when 
trying to follow them in search of their contents. 
The sand troughs or rivers yielded the whole 
bones, 7. e., vertebree with processes and even 
rarely whole skeletons. The bogs yielded frag- 
mentary bones. These were found to have 
been gnawed, asa rule, and the gnawing had 
been done also where they now lie in the 
strata. Legs were found bitten off at the 
knees, as if the animal had mired and its buried 
parts thus escaped being devoured. Also 
numerous fragments of, evidently, a single ani- 
mal would occur scattered about, the ends and 
thin parts of bones being gnawed off. For ex- 
ample, more than once a Coryphodon’s large 
tooth was found with the surface, including the 
enamel, chiseled off by some corrugated tooth, 
probably that of some Tillodont mammal. 
Plates of turtles’ plastron had likewise been 
nibbled all around their margins. In fact, 
worthless fragments composed the greater part 
of the fossils. 
When one had become skilled in detecting 
the differences between those pieces fractured 
before, and. those after, fossilization, many 
strange things began to be evident, such as 
fragments taken from the same stratum at 
some distance apart, proving to be those of one 
bone; and again fragments representing the 
same parts of several animals occurring in one 
spot, the other parts of all being absent. A lot 
of molar teeth and an odontoid process seem 
often to represent a head and neck. This all 
appeared to be incidental to the feasting that 
had preceded fossilization. 
That crocodiles and turtles may have done 
the gnawing in part was suggested by their 
fossil remains, but that the chiseling process 
was theirs could not be maintained. In some 
cases, maceration had left the bones shapeless 
or thickly encrusted with iron. 
maceration as well as the chiseling might well 
argue the subaerial deposition of the bones. 
I may mention also two geologically signif- 
icant phenomena which require close observa- 
tion tojdistinguish them, Original stratigraphic 
inequalities, amounting sometimes to local un- 
SCIENCE. 
And this 
869 
conformability, might be passed unnoticed 
among the numerous similar looking inequali- 
ties due to unequal induration of the rock, the 
latter being intimately associated as to its cause 
with the physiographic changes now develop- 
ing. And the color banding may be both 
original stratigraphic and secondarily modified. 
I remember one fine example of a large trough 
filled with a series of clay and sand strata, seen 
at a distance on the left of the trail ascending 
Tatman’s butte to the Buffalo basin. But not 
having had time to examine it minutely, I 
scarcely dare assert that it might not be 
secondary cross-coloring. Close at hand one 
would not have noticed it, because the whole 
could not have been seen, and the slow thinning 
out of individual strata would be nothing un- 
usual. Expeditions into badlands for the pur- 
pose of collecting fossils can not well take 
time in one season to gather and verify occur- 
rences sufficient to prove the exact geologic 
nature of the deposit of part, much less the 
whole, of a basin, which, however, expeditions 
for that express purpose might do. 
FREDERICK W. SARDESON. 
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, 
April 6, 1901. 
AN UNUSUAL TYPE OF AURIFEROUS DEPOSIT. 
OnE of the most unique deposits of gold- 
bearing material which the writer has ever 
seen has been worked during the past three or 
four years at the King Solomon mine. It is 
situated near the summit of Cafion mountain, 
in the basin of the South Fork of Salmon river, 
in the southwestern part of Siskiyou county, 
California. 
The ore consisted of a body of semi-decom- 
posed country-rock, including micaceous schist, 
slate and greenstone, heavily stained with the 
oxides of iron and manganese and containing 
fine particles of free gold disseminated through 
it. The deposit had a length of about 500 feet, 
an average width of 60 feet and mainly a work- 
able depth of 50 feet, although a much narrower 
body of ore continues to greater depth. Min- 
ing operations have been conducted in several 
large open pits, beneath the floors of which have 
been excavated tunnels. The ore is shoveled 
_ from the loose crumbling slopes of the pits into 
