198 
galleries being opened for the purpose (Native Races, Pacific 
States, vol. ii. 474). 
They carried their excavations,, we are told, to the depth of 
200 feet or more, to procure the chalchinite (or turquoise) so 
much prized as an ornament. Obsidian they obtained in the 
same way, the mines at the Cerro de las Navajas, near Monte 
Jacal, being described as opening three or four feet in diameter, 
and 110 to 140 feet in extent (horizontally), with side drifts as 
occasion might require. 
The copper mines and the mica mines of much ruder tribes 
in the Northern and Eastern parts of the United States 
illustrate these facts. 
One more statement on this subject would seem to render 
the violent hypothesis of Professors Whitney and Marsh wholly 
unnecessary. 
One of these ancient shafts has been actually discovered 
in this very Table Mountain which figures so largely in these 
accounts, and where the celebrated Calaveras skull itself was 
discovered under such remarkable circumstances. 
The discovery in question was made in 1849, long before 
the discussions about the existence of man in the Tertiary 
strata had ever been dreamed of. I quote from School- 
craft’s Archceology, vol. i. p. 105 : — 
<c It was late in the month of August, in 1849, that the 
gold-diggers at one of the mountain diggings called Murphy’s 
were surprised, in examining a high barren district of moun- 
tain, to find the abandoned site of an old mine. 
“ ‘ It is evidently/ says a writer, f the work of ancient 
times.’ The shaft discovered is 210 ft. deep. Its mouth is 
situated on a high mountain. It was several days before 
preparations could be completed to descend and explore it. 
The bones of a human skeleton were found at the bottom. 
There were also found an altar for worship and other evidences 
of ancient labour. No evidence has been discovered to denote 
the era of this ancient work. There has been nothing to 
determine whether it is to be regarded as the remains of the 
explorations of the first Spanish adventurers, or of a . still 
earlier period. The occurrence of the remains of an altar 
looks like the period of Indian worship.”* 
* While reading these proof-sheets, my eye has fallen on the following 
item in an American newspaper, which seems to me pertinent to the matter 
in hand. It is a fresh illustration of the existence of these ancient mines. 
(From The Interior, Chicago, November 4, 1880): — “An old mine, sup- 
posed to have been worked by the ancients, was discovered last week by a 
prospecting party in the Sangre de Cristo range of mountains, Colorado. In 
