ANCIENT SOAPSTONE QUAKE Y. 119 



to light, with man)' tools of hard slate in the shape of chisels, and scrapers 

 of quartz. 



From the Little Springs we followed the canon to the northward, and 

 crossed the pass, easy of access from this side, into Pots Valley. It is a wide 

 hollow canon, in which pot-stone, silicious slate, and "float "-quartz are found 

 abundantly. The pot-stone is found especially below the small spring, 

 which makes out near the base of a very conspicuous, isolated, large rock, 

 which stands nearly in the centre of the valley; while the slate, of which 

 the chisels are made, crops out boldly, higher up near the pass. Several hun- 

 dred yards below the spring, at the ravine to the right going down, is found 

 a pit ; and the ledge of pot-stone close by forms a face in the ravine, which 

 shows the same marks of the chisel as at Little Springs. About eight dis- 

 tinct marks cover the lower face, while others are obliterated by subsequent 

 mining. One, having only been commenced, shows the outlines of a pot- 

 form in a circle worked to a depth of only an inch, and measures 16 inches 

 in diameter Between this place and the second ravine, about 50 yards to 

 the northwestward, is another pit of larger dimension — about 15 feet in 

 diameter and still 5 feet deep — where, too, among the debris, potsherds and 

 quantities of slate fragments and quartz are found ; some of which had evi- 

 dently been used in working the mine and making the pots Besides these 

 places there are many more pits in the valley, and a quarry especially prom- 

 inent about four hundred yards to the eastward from Pots Valley boat-land- 

 ing, close to the steep ocean shore. In fact, on entering the canon by the 

 pass, as we did, when the grand rock near the spring, the lesser cliffs, and the 

 scattered boulders can be overseen, I was struck, on examining the locality 

 through a field-glass, by the discovery of so many silver-huecl mounds, the 

 debris of pits, the rock quarries, and the open-air workshops, so that I 

 believed I had found the main factory of the ollas of the California abo- 

 rigines. Even those not interested in aboriginal remains cannot fail to 

 notice the manufacturing propensities of the people that formerly roamed 

 here, and the locality was appropriately named. 



In examining the slate quarry I found the rock had been first broken 

 into accidental shape and size, and such pieces as were best adapted for 

 chisels were then selected and trimmed. The scrapers, usually made of 



