NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 607 



Waldo was the scene of the earliest discovery in Oregon of 

 stream placers in the country back from the ocean. Sailors 

 penetrated to it in 1853 and found rich pay-streaks in the bed 

 of a small stream which heads up in the ancient gravels of what 

 must once have been a large river. The discovery received 

 the name of the Sailor Diggings, and the name Waldo came 

 later. The ancient gravels are now on top of a ridge and have 

 remained in relief while the former banks have been removed 

 by erosion. The course of the river was to the north, since 

 its bed-rock declines in this direction. The bed-rock as exposed 

 in the placer mines is chiefly serpentine, but in one place the 

 rim-rock is fossiliferous sandstone, which has been studied and 

 determined by J. S. Diller. The boulders are chiefly eruptive 

 rocks of various sorts and are much softened as a rule by decom- 

 position. The exact relations of the old drainage would require 

 more investigation for their elucidation than the writer could 

 give in the brief time at command, and it can only be stated 

 that they cover a rather wide area east and west, having been 

 mined at intervals for half a mile or more across the main 

 course, but whether this is from forking of the old main channel 

 or not was not determined. Some shallower gravels are prob- 

 ably due to the washing down of the old high-channel deposit 

 over the slopes and on to the flats on either side of its crest. 



Pestles appear to occur in the gravels as a not specially 

 exceptional phenomenon. The operators of the mines speak 

 of their occasional discovery as a matter which does not excite 

 surprise. The following instance, however, of two mortars 

 and of one or two pestles attracted the attention of Mr. W. J. 

 Wimer, the manager and part owner of the Deep Gravel property, 

 and, although the objects were brought to light in the hydrau- 

 licking during the night shift, he carefully recorded the details 

 early the next morning. I particularly inquired about the pos- 

 sibility of the bank's caving in so as to make implements from 

 the surface appear as if buried in the deeper gravels, but this 

 possibility seems to be guarded against both by the auriferous 

 cement in the larger mortar and by its actual detection in the 

 bank by the pipe man. The mortar was thought by him to 

 be a boulder and he shut off the stream and extracted it with 



