608 RECORD OF MEETINGS OF THE 



a pick. The mortars and pestles are now in the possession of 

 Col. T. Wain-Morgan Draper, a well-known mining engineer, at 

 whose summer home, a few miles from Waldo, the implements 

 now are. 



The following extract from a letter of Mr.Wimer written at 

 my request gives the facts. 



"The mortar is about 12 inches high by 9 inches across, 

 and it is made of the hardest granite. Two of our night men 

 piped it out in 1902, when it was firmly embedded in a blue 

 cement gravel (the pay channel), fifty-eight feet from the 

 surface. They had to resort to picks to get it out and the 

 bed or hole out of which they pulled it remained, showing its 

 perfect mould. I went to the mine in the morning and the 

 two men formally presented it to me. It was still packed 

 tightly to its very rim with blue cement gravel. With a sharp 

 pick I carefully picked the gravel loose so that I could clean 

 it. I was some time doing so. I then washed the detritus 

 and got eight pretty large colors of gold. 



"H. M. Pfefferly and D. W. Yarbrough were the finders. 

 The place was in the S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4; Sec. 21; T. 40 S. : 

 R. 8. W., W.M., Josephine County, Oregon, on the property of the 

 Deep Gravel Mining Co. The other mortar is what Colonel 

 Draper terms a quartz mortar, having a saucer-like cavity 

 on its top. The gold from the ground where it was piped out 

 was pronounced by the Selby Smelting Company in San Fran- 

 cisco to be ''quartz gold,' their receipt to us being so marked. 

 This mortar was probably about ten feet under the surface. 

 It was 300 yards from the other one and on Sec. 20, being there- 

 fore the S.E. 1/4 of N.E. It Vvas found in 1901. The pestles 

 were discovered with it; they were in the pay dirt." 



Those occurrences add one more instance to the list of stone 

 implements which have been found in the auriferous gravels 

 of the Pacific coast. The writer fully realizes the criticism 

 which has been brought to bear upon them and the skepticism 

 with which their authenticity is regarded by many. The Waldo 

 case may be stated upon the testimony of Mr. Wimer and Mr. 

 Pfefferly, and may add its contribution to the general mass of 

 evidence regardng the antiquity of man in the Far West. 



