692 THE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA, 



Unfortunately, the evidence that human remains have 

 been taken from beneath these lava-capped mountain-ridges 

 is neither of recent date nor that of professed geologists. 

 We are compelled to depend upon the testimony of plain 

 miners, exhibiting what they found and recounting what 

 they saw several years ago. This fact, which needs expla- 

 nation, is said to arise from the wholesale changes in the 

 methods of mining introduced by hydraulic processes. By 

 present methods terraces are washed down into a promiscu- 

 ous heap by jets of water forced against them with great ve- 

 locity, so that there is little hope of finding the archaeologi- 

 cal specimens they may have contained. The golden days 

 for the archaeologist in California have passed by. Still, so 

 many independent witnesses from different localities have 

 testified to the facts which we now relate, and circumstantial 

 evidence so fully corroborates the statements of the witnesses, 

 that Professor Whitney and his associates think they are be- 

 yond question.* 



As early as 1863 Dr. Snell, of Sonora, began a systematic 

 collection of animal and human remains from the mines in 

 his vicinity. In his collection were several objects marked as 

 " From under Table Mountain," among which was a human 

 jaw. Dr. Snell's collection was destroyed by fire, and he 

 died in 1869 ; but Professor Whitney and Mr. Yoy had 

 repeatedly examined it and conversed with him. A stone 

 utensil, apparently used for grinding, was the only one 

 which Dr. Snell claims to have taken with his own hands 

 from the dirt as it came out of the tunnel under the mountain. 



In 1857 Hon. Paul Hubbs, of Yallejo, Cal. (subsequently 

 a State Superintendent of Public Instruction), picked a por- 

 tion of a human skull out of the dirt as it was brought from 

 the Yalentine shaft, under Table Mountain, near Shaw's Flat. 

 This skull was given to Dr. C. F. Winslow, who soon after 

 (October 7, 1857) divided it, and sent one piece to the Phila- 



* A few paragraphs are here substantially reproduced from my " Studies in 

 Science and Religion," p. 285 et seq. 



