Wright.] 
246 
[Feb. xS 
I would add that while at Angell’s, in Calaveras county, Cali- 
fornia, I met Mr. Scribner, into whose hands the Calaveras skull 
first came after being brought out by Mr. Mattison, and from him 
and other persons whom I interviewed, I obtained some important 
circumstantial evidence confirming Professor Whitney’s conclu- 
sions as to the genuineness of that discovery. I also obtained in- 
formation concerning a stone mortar 6J in. in diameter, with a 
cavity 4f in. diameter at the top, and 2J in. deep, and of which I 
have secured a photograph from its present owner, which shows 
t to be identical in type with the others which have been reported 
ias discovered under Table Mountain. The discoverer was Mr. 
C. McTarnahan, of Sonora, assistant county surveyor of Tuolumne 
county, and I had the account from his own lips. 
It was found in the autumn of 1887 in the Empire Mine, which 
is in part owned by his father, and lies upon the other side of 
Table Mountain, and about a mile distant from the Valentine 
shaft at Shaw’s Flat, from which the part of a skull came which 
was given by Mr. Winslow to the Boston Society of Natural His- 
tory in 1857. Mr. McTarnahan found this mortar himself at a 
point in the tunnel 758 feet from the mouth of the tunnel, in the 
auriferous gravel, 175 feet in a horizontal line from the edge 
of the basalt wall of Table Mountain, and where the basalt is 
about 100 feet thick. No one can visit the locality, as I did, with- 
out seeing that there is no room for mistake, except in the case of 
deliberate falsehood. But in this case there was no temptation 
to falsehood. For as the object had not been looked upon by Mr. 
McTarnahan as a thing which he cared to preserve, he laid it 
aside near the mouth of the tunnel, when, soon after, Mrs. M. 
J. Darwin of Santa Rosa, while making a visit to their house on 
her way home from the Yosemite, saw it near the tunnel, and ex- 
pressed a desire to have it. Mr. McTarnahan’s mother at once 
told her to take it home with her, as they had no use for it. This 
she did without any suspicion of any special interest attaching to 
it, until my inquiries directed to her by letter since my return 
home. I shall soon have the object in my possession, and will 
then report farther upon it. But there can be no question, I 
think, of its having been found in place in the auriferous gravel 
under Table Mountain, and as confirmatory of previous evidence 
of the same character, it must be recognized as a discovery of the 
very highest importance. 
Oberlin, Ohio, Jan. 11, 1890. 
