IMPLEMENTS AND BONES FROM THE GRAVELS. 191 



human jaw which had been given him by miners, among whom his practice 

 lay, as coming from these gravels. Mr. Paul K. Hubbs, once state superin- 

 tendent of public instruction in California, was present in July, 1857, when 

 a small piece of a human skull was taken from a sluice in which pay gravel 

 was being washed at the Valentine shaft, near Shaw's flat. The gravel still 

 adhered to this fragment when Mr. Hubbs received it, and the shaft through 

 which the material was brought to the surface was a boarded one, so that 

 the bone (it is believed) could not have dropped into the shaft from near the 

 surface, where also there was no gravel. Mr. Albert Walton, one of the 

 owners of this claim, also states that a mortar was found in the gravel. Mr. 

 Oliver W. Stevens, about 1853, picked from a car-load of dirt at the Sonora 

 tunnel a mastodon tooth containing pyrite and a large perforated marble 

 bead, which came into Professor' Whitney's possession and shows that pyrite 

 had filled or encrusted the hole. Stevens made an affidavit as to this dis- 

 covery. Mr. Llewellyn Pierce made a sworn statement that about 1862 he 

 dug up a mortar in a tunnel on the Boston Tunnel Company's claim, 1800 

 feet from the mouth of the tunnel and 200 feet beneath the surface, the basalt 

 cap being here over 60 feet in thickness. This last is a very strong state- 

 ment. Mr. Pierce must have known whether he did or did not dig up this 

 mortar. I know nothing of Mr. Pierce, and it is possible that he may have 

 been fond of practical jokes ; but there are surely few men who would carry 

 a joke to the length of deliberately perjuring themselves, and, had Mr. Pierce 

 been capable of such a thing, it is probable that his reputation for untruth- 

 fulness would have been notorious. Mr. Pierce, if he is alive, will, I trust, 

 pardon me for treating his credibility as if he were a witness in court. That 

 practical jokes were in vogue in California in early days is certain, and it is 

 unquestionable that Mr. Pierce's affidavit was taken with the express pur- 

 pose of guarding against the objection that he might not be in earnest. 



Mr. Neale's Discoveries. — During the past summer Dr. R. I. Bromley of 

 Sonora called my attention to a mortar in his possession which had been 

 given him as coming from beneath Table mountain. On inquiry I found 

 that the original authority was Mr. J. H. Neale, a resident of Sonora, a 

 mining superintendent by profession, a man of property and of unclouded 

 reputation for veracity — one, in short, who could not afford to perpetrate a 

 deception. Mr. Neale gave me a most intelligent account of his discovery 

 and willingly took an affidavit to the following statement : 



Sonora, August 2, 1890. 

 In 1877 Mr. J. H. Neale was superintendent of the Montezuma Tunnel Company, 

 and ran the Montezuma tunnel into the gravel underlying the lava of Table mountain, 

 Tuolumne county. The mouth of the tunnel is near the road which leads in a south- 

 erly direction from Rawhide camp, and about three miles from that place. The mouth is 

 approximately 1,200 feet from the present edge of the solid lava cap of the mountain. 

 The course of the tunnel is a little north of east. 



