THE ANCIENT MAN OF CALA VERAS, 457 



Dr. Snell had in his collection a stone muller or pestle which he took with 

 his own hands from a car load of "dirt " as it came out from under Table Moun- 

 tain. 



Mr. Llewellyn Price certifies that in 1862 he dug a stone mortar under 

 Table Mountain at a depth of about 200 feet from the surface and about 1800 

 feet in from the mouth of the tunnel. 



But why need we specify any further single instances. The witnesses al- 

 ready given were all credible and worthy men, they could have had no possible 

 collusion, they had no motive for deception, and the circumstances were such 

 that they could not well be deceived as to what they stated. If any candid per- 

 son will not be convinced by the evidence they give, he would be equally incred- 

 ulous were a hundred more to testify to the same truths. 



And the hundred more could be summoned were it worth the while, for the 

 instances in which the products of human workmanship have been washed out of 

 the "gravel" in searching for gold are altogether too numerous for record. 

 Very many of them are now in the Museum of the University of California, and 

 very many more were disregarded and lost, for so common did they become dur- 

 ing the days of surface mining, that at length the miners paid no attention to 

 them, and they simply went in with the refuse of the workings. 



They were almost universally implements of stone, such as mortars, pestles, 

 rude vases or platters, that is, articles which could be used for grinding food, etc., 

 but all rough in workmanship and evidently fabricated by people low in the 

 scale of civilization. But such as they are, they show with what appears to be 

 conclusive proof, that they were made before Table Mountain lava was erupted, 

 and perhaps long before, for they were also surely made before the auriferous 

 gravels were deposited. 



One item comes naturally to our consideration here in the line of confirma- 

 tion The auriferous gravels contain abundant remains of plants and animals. 

 Mastodons and elephants appear to have specially abounded; in no other part of 

 the world have their bones and teeth been found in greater numbers. With thein 

 were found species of rhinoceros, Elotherium, horse, ox, camel, etc., etc. ^ But 

 all of these were of types long since passed away, and the same can be said of 

 the leaves and fossilized wood. Dr. Newberry's report characterizes them as be- 

 ing entirely unlike anything now growing in California, and as belonging to the 

 Tertiary age, the later Pliocene. Now we know that the fauna and flora of a 

 country cannot be completely changed except through the intervention of a very 

 great space in time, or the agency of a sudden cataclysm and reconstruction. 



And shall we now compare them in age with the others which are absolutely 

 prehistoric, and which have disturbed the scientific world by their venerable an- 

 tiquity. Fierce have been the conflicts waged over the Neanderthal skull, the 

 Engis skull, the men of Cro Magnon and the various other relics gathered from 



^ 1 We pointed out in the Naturalist for January, 1880, that the occurrence of rhinoceros and Elothprium 

 in these beds is impossible, unless transported from a long distance. The Elotherium, especially, could only 

 have been bought there by man from Central Oregon or farther off. For camel should be read lama. — Note 

 by Ed. Naturalist. 



