ANTIQUITIES OF THE NORTHWEST.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF NORTH-WESTERN REMAINS -- NO TRACES OF
EXTINCT OR OF CIVILIZED RACES -- ANTIQUITIES OF CALIFORNIA
-- STONE IMPLEMENTS -- NEWSPAPER REPORTS -- TAYLOR'S WORK
-- COLORADO DESERT -- TRAIL AND ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS --
BURIAL RELICS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA -- BONES OF GIANTS --
MOUNDS IN THE SATICOY VALLEY -- NEW ALMADEN MINE --
PRE-HISTORIC RELICS IN THE MINING SHAFTS -- STONE
IMPLEMENTS, HUMAN BONES, AND REMAINS OF EXTINCT ANIMAL
SPECIES -- VOY'S WORK -- SAN JOAQUIN RELICS -- MERCED
MOUNDS -- MARTINEZ -- SHELL MOUNDS ROUND SAN FRANCISCO
BAY, AND THEIR CONTENTS -- RELICS FROM A SAN FRANCISCO
MOUND -- ANTIQUITIES OF NEVADA -- UTAH -- MOUNDS OF SALT
LAKE VALLEY -- COLORADO -- REMAINS AT GOLDEN CITY --
EXTENSIVE RUINS IN SOUTHERN COLORADO AND UTAH -- JACKSON'S
EXPEDITION -- MANCOS AND ST ELMO CAÑONS -- IDAHO AND
MONTANA -- OREGON -- WASHINGTON -- MOUNDS ON BUTE PRAIRIE
-- YAKIMA EARTH-WORK -- BRITISH COLUMBIA -- DEANS'
EXPLORATIONS -- MOUNDS AND EARTH-WORKS OF VANCOUVER ISLAND
-- ALASKA.
Ruins of the New Mexican Pueblo type, described in the preceding
chapter, extend across the boundary lines of New Mexico and Arizona,
and have been found by travelers in southern Utah and Colorado; stone
and bone implements similar to those used by the natives when the
first Europeans came and since that time, are frequently picked up on
the surface or taken from aboriginal graves in most parts of the
whole northern region; a few scattered rock-inscriptions are reported
in several of the states; burial mounds and other small earth-heaps of
unknown use are seen in many localities; shell mounds, some of them of
great size, occur at various points in the coast region, as about San
Francisco Bay and on Vancouver Island, and they probably might be
found along nearly the whole coast line; and the mining shafts of
California have brought to light human remains, implements wrought by
human hands, and bones of extinct animals, at great depths below the
surface, evidently of great age. With the preceding paragraph and a
short account of the ruins of Colorado, I might consistently dispose
of the antiquities of the Northwest.
There has not been found and reported on good authority a single
monument or relic which is sufficient to prove that the country was
ever inhabited by any people whose claims to be regarded as civilized
were superior to those of the tribes found by Europeans within its
limits. It is true that some implements may not exactly agree with
those of the tribes now occupying the same particular locality, and
some graves indicate slight differences in the manner of burial, but
this could hardly be otherwise in a country inhabited by so many
nations whose boundaries were constantly changing. Yet I have often
heard the Aztec relics of California and Oregon very confidently
spoken of. It is a remarkable fact that to most men who find a piece
of stone bearing marks of having been formed by human hands, the very
first idea suggested is that it represents an extinct race, while the
last conclusion arrived at is that the relic may be the work of a
tribe still living in the vicinity where it was found.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CALIFORNIAN RELICS.]
California has within her limits large quantities of native utensils
and many burial deposits, some of which doubtless date back to the
time when no European had yet set foot in the country. A complete
description of such relics, illustrated with cuts of typical specimens
from different sections of the state, would be of great value in
connection with the account of the Californian tribes given in a
preceding volume; but unfortunately the material for such description
and cuts are utterly wanting, and will not be supplied for many years.
Officers and assistants connected with the U. S. Coast Survey and
other government exploring expeditions, are constantly, though slowly,
gathering relics for the national collection, and a few individuals
acting in an unofficial capacity have examined certain localities and
described the aboriginal implements found therein through trustworthy
mediums. But most of the discoveries in this direction are recorded
only in newspaper accounts, which, in a large majority of cases, offer
no guarantee of their authenticity or accuracy. Many are self-evident
hoaxes; many others are doubtless as reliable as if published in the
narrative of the most trust-worthy explorer or in the transactions of
any learned society; but to decide upon the relative merits of the
great bulk of these accounts is altogether impossible, to say nothing
of the absence of drawings, which, after all, are the only
satisfactory description of miscellaneous relics. I therefore deem it
not advisable to fill the pages of a long chapter with a compilation
of the almost innumerable newspaper items in my possession, useless
for the most part to antiquarians, and comparatively without interest
to the general reader. Dr Alex. S. Taylor has already made quite a
complete compilation of the earlier accounts in Californian newspapers,
which he published in the _California Farmer_ in 1860-3. Without, as a
rule, going into details, I shall present a brief résumé of what has
been written about Californian relics of aboriginal times, giving in
full only a few reports of undoubted authenticity.[XII-1]
Brasseur de Bourbourg tells us that in the distant north "was found
anciently a city named Tula, the ruins of which are thought to have
been found in the valley, still so little explored, of Tulares. The
Americans have announced in their newspapers the discovery of these
Californian ruins, but can one credit the reports?" Brasseur possibly
alludes in the paragraph quoted to certain reports circulated about
1853, which announced the discovery, somewhere in the desert of the
Colorado on the California side, of a ruined bridge of stone, where no
river had run for ages, together with an immense pyramid, and other
grand remains. These reports seem to have originated in the
correspondence of a Placerville newspaper; but whether they were
manufactured in the office of the paper, or were actually sent in by
some roaming prospector of an inventive turn of mind, does not
appear.[XII-2]
[Sidenote: COLORADO DESERT.]
Mr Blake found in the Colorado desert "several long, path-like
discolorations of the surface, extending for miles in nearly straight
lines, which were Indian trails. The only change which was produced
appeared to be the removal or dimming of the polish on the pebbles.
There was no break in the hard surface, and no dust. That the
distinctness of the trail was made by the removing of the polish only,
became evident from the fact that figures and Indian hieroglyphics
were traced, or imprinted, on the surface adjoining the path,
apparently by pounding or bruising the surface layer of the pebbles.
These trails seemed very old, and may have endured for many
generations."[XII-3] A writer in the _Bulletin_ mentions a road which
extends from the mouth of the Coahuila Valley of San Gorgonio Pass,
beginning at Noble's ranch, eastwardly across the desert in almost a
straight line, to the mouth of the Colorado Cañon. The earth is worn
deep, and along its course the surface is strewn with broken pottery.
In many of the soft rocks the imprints of the feet of men and animals
are still plainly visible. The road is not much over a foot wide, and
from it branch off side paths leading to springs or other sources of
water.[XII-4] The only other remains in the desert of which I find any
record are some rock-inscriptions at Pah Ute Creek, located about
thirty miles west from the Mojave villages. Mr Whipple gives a drawing
of the inscriptions, which bear a strong resemblance in their general
character, as might be expected, to those which have been found in so
many localities in the New Mexican region.[XII-5]
The vertical face of a granite cliff at San Francisquito Pass, near a
spring, was covered with carved characters, probably similar to those
last described. One of the characters resembled a long chain, with a
ball at one end, surrounded by rays like those employed in our
representations of the sun; another was like in form to an anchor.
Well-worn ancient foot-paths, old reservoirs, and other undescribed
relics are reported in the vicinity of Owen's lake and river.[XII-6]
Painted figures in blue, red, and white, are reported, together with
some Spanish inscriptions of a date preceding 1820, in Painted Rock
Valley, four days' journey east by south from Tejon Pass, also in the
cañada of the San Juan arroyo, which empties into the Salinas River
near the mission of San Miguel. In the former case the figures are
painted on a blue grayish rock, about twenty feet square and hollowed
out in bowl shape.[XII-7]
[Sidenote: BURIAL RELICS IN THE SOUTH.]
[Illustration: Relics from Southern California.]
Mr Paul Schumacher, engaged in the service of the United States Coast
Survey, has taken great interest in Californian aboriginal relics,
which he has collected for the Smithsonian Institution at Washington.
In the vicinity of San Luis Obispo, between points Sal and San Luis,
he examined during the past year four graves or burial deposits, known
as _nipomo_, _walckhe_, _kesmali_, _temeteti_. These graves furnished
some three hundred human skeletons, or rather about that number were
examined, and also quite a large number of domestic utensils, weapons,
and ornaments. Among these relics great uniformity is observed,
indicating that all the graves belonged to the same tribe of natives.
Nine specimens are shown in the cut on the opposite page, made from Mr
Schumacher's drawings. Fig. 1, 2, and 9, represent large cooking-pots,
globular or pear-shaped, and hollowed out of magnesian mica. The
circular opening of fig. 9, having a small and narrow rim, measures
only five inches in diameter, while the greatest diameter of the pot
is eighteen inches. Near the edge of the opening this vessel is only a
quarter of an inch thick, but the thickness increases regularly
towards the bottom, where it is an inch and a quarter. Sandstone
mortars of different dimensions, but of similar forms, were found in
great abundance with the other utensils, one of the largest of which
is shown in fig. 8. This is sixteen inches in diameter and thirteen
in height. The smallest are only an inch and a half high, and three
inches in diameter. The pestles are of the same material, and their
form is shown in fig. 3. There was moreover, quite an assortment of
what seem to be cups, measuring from one and a quarter to six inches
in diameter, and neatly worked out of serpentine, the surface of which
was brightly polished. Specimens are shown in fig. 5 and 7. Another
similar one, the smallest found, was enclosed in three shells, in a
very curious manner, as shown in fig. 6. In this enclosed cup was a
quantity of what is described as paint; and traces of the same
material were found in all the cups, indicating that they were not
used to contain food. Fig. 4 represents a plate which is presumably of
stone, although the cut would seem to indicate a shell. These domestic
implements deposited by the aborigines with their dead were rarely
broken, and when they were so, the breakage was caused in every
instance by the pressure of the soil or other superimposed objects.
One peculiar circumstance in connection with these relics was that
some broken mortars and pestles were repaired by the use of asphaltum
as a cement. All the relics collected by Mr Schumacher, as well as
those which I have copied, are preserved in the National Museum at
Washington.[XII-8] The same explorer is now engaged in making an
examination of the islands of the Santa Barbara Channel, where it is
not improbable that many interesting relics may be discovered. Mr
Taylor heard from a resident of San Buenaventura that "in a recent
stay on Santa Rosa Island, in 1861, he often met with the entire
skeletons of Indians in the caves. The signs of their rancherías were
very frequent, and the remains of metates, mortars, earthen pots, and
other utensils very common. The metates were of a dark stone, and
made somewhat after the pattern of the Mexican. Extensive caves were
often met with which seemed to serve as burial places of the Indians,
as entire skeletons and numerous skulls were plentifully scattered
about in their recesses." Some very wonderful skulls are also reported
as having been found on the islands, furnished with double teeth all
the way round the jaw.[XII-9]
[Sidenote: MISCELLANEOUS REMAINS.]
Miscellaneous relics reported on authority varying from indifferent to
bad at different points in the southern part of the state, are as
follows: In 1819 an old lady saw a gigantic skeleton dug up by
soldiers at Purísima on the Lompock rancho. The natives deemed it a
god, and it was re-buried by direction of the padre. Taheechaypah pass
and the mission of San Buenaventura are other localities where
skeletons of extraordinary size have been found. The old natives at
San Luis Rey have seen in the mountain passes tracks of men and
animals in solid rock. These tracks were made, those of the men at
least, by their fathers fleeing from some convulsion of nature which
occurred not many generations back. Nine miles north of Santa Barbara
on the Dos Pueblos rancho, some small mounds only two or three feet
high have been seen on the point of the mesa overlooking the sea. Mr
Carvalho claims to have dug from a small mound near Los Angeles the
bones of a mastodon, including four perfect teeth, one of which
weighed six pounds. Miss Saxon speaks of high mounds in the vicinity
of rivers, said to have been once the site of villages so located for
protection against floods.[XII-10]
In the plain at the mouth of the Saticoy River, twelve miles below San
Buenaventura, and five or six miles from the sea, are reported two
mounds, regular, rounded, and bare of trees. One of them is over a
mile long and two hundred feet high, and the other about half as
large. If the report of their existence is correct, there seems to be
no evidence that they are of artificial formation, except their
isolated position on the plain, and a native tradition that they are
burial-places. One writer suggests that they are the graves of a
people, or of their kings, whose cities are buried beneath the waters
of the Santa Barbara Channel. The site of the cities presents some
obstacles to exploration, and the details of their construction are
not fully known. Twenty miles farther up the Saticoy is a group of
small mounds, ten or twelve in number and five or six feet high. They
"seem to have been water-worn or worked out by running water all
around the mounds so as to isolate each one." Near these mounds, on
the Cayetano rancho, is a field of some five hundred acres, divided by
parallel ridges of earth, and having distinct traces of irrigating
ditches, supplied by a canal which extends two or three miles up the
Sespe arroyo. It is said that the present inhabitants of this region,
both native and Spanish, have no knowledge of the origin of these
agricultural works.[XII-11]
It is said that the New Almaden quicksilver mines were worked by the
natives for the purpose of obtaining vermilion, long before the coming
of the Spaniards. The excavation made by the aboriginal miners was
long supposed to be a natural cavern, extending about one hundred feet
horizontally into the hill, until some skeletons, rude mining tools,
and other relics of human presence revealed the secret.[XII-12]
In various localities about Monterey, in addition to the usual mortars
and arrow-heads, holes in the living rock, used probably as mortars
for pounding acorns and seeds, are reported by Taylor; and the Santa
Cruz 'skull cave' is spoken of as 'noted throughout the country' for
having furnished bones now preserved in the Smithsonian
Institution.[XII-13]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: REMAINS FROM THE MINES.]
One of the most interesting classes of Californian antiquities is that
which includes aboriginal remains discovered in the mining counties,
at considerable depths below the surface of the ground. The stone
implements thus found are not in themselves particularly interesting,
or different from those which have been found under other
circumstances; nor do they include any specimens which indicate the
former existence of any race more advanced than that found in the
country by Europeans. But the chief importance of these antiquities
consists in the great depth at which some of them have been found, and
in the fact that they have been found in connection with the fossil
bones of animals belonging to species now no longer existing in the
country. The existence of the work of human hands buried hundreds of
feet beneath the many successive layers of different rocks and earths,
might not necessarily imply a greater age than one dating a few
centuries before the coming of the Spaniards; although few would be
willing to admit, probably, that natural convulsions so extensive have
taken place at so recent an epoch. But when the work of human hands is
shown to have been discovered in connection with the bones of
mastodons, elephants, horses, camels, and other animals long since
extinct, and that they have been so found there seems to be sufficient
proof, it is hardly possible with consistency to deny that these
implements date from a remote antiquity. Newspaper items describing
relics of this class are almost numberless; a few of the specimens
have fallen into the hands of scientific men, who have carefully
examined and described them; but a great majority, even of such
implements as have not been completely overlooked by the miner who dug
or washed them from their deep resting-places, have been lost after
exciting a momentary curiosity, and their important testimony lost to
science. Mr C. D. Voy of Oakland has shown much energy and interest in
the examination of stone implements and fossils from the mines. The
relics themselves have of course been found in almost every instance
by miners in their search for gold; but Mr Voy has personally visited
most of the localities where such discoveries were reported, and seems
to have taken all possible pains to verify the authenticity of the
discoveries, having in many cases obtained sworn statements from the
parties who made them. An unpublished manuscript written by this
gentleman is entitled _Relics of the Stone Age in California_, and is
illustrated with many photographs of specimens from his own and other
collections. This work, kindly furnished me by Mr Voy, is probably the
most complete extant on the subject, and from it I take the following
descriptions. The author proceeds by counties, first describing the
geology of each county, and then the relics of whose existence he has
been able to learn, and the localities where they were found. Except a
brief statement in a few cases of the depth at which stone remains
were found, and of the strata that covered them, I shall not touch
upon the geologic formation of the mining region. Nor does a
particular or scientific description of the fossil remains come within
the scope of my work. A brief account of the stone implements and the
positions in which they have been discovered will suffice.
[Illustration: Stone Mortar--Kincaid Flat.]
[Sidenote: TUOLUMNE COUNTY.]
Of all the counties Tuolumne has apparently proved the richest in
antiquarian remains. From the mining tunnels which penetrate Table
Mountain there was taken in 1858 a stone mortar holding two quarts, at
a depth of three hundred feet from the surface, lying in auriferous
gravel under a thick strata of lava. In 1862 another mortar was found
at a depth of three hundred and forty feet, one hundred and four of
which were composed of lava, and eighteen hundred feet from the mouth
of the tunnel. This relic is in Mr Voy's collection, accompanied by a
sworn statement of the circumstances of its finding. Dr Snell is said
to have had in his possession in 1862 a pendant or shuttle of
silicious slate, similar to others of which I shall give a cut;
spear-heads six or eight inches long, and broken off at the hole where
they were attached to the shaft; and a scoop, or ladle, of steatite.
These relics were found under Table Mountain at the same depth as the
preceding, together with fossil bones of the mastodon and other
animals, and are preserved in the Smithsonian Institute and in the
museum of Yale College. The cut represents a stone mortar and pestle,
found at Kincaid Flat in clayey auriferous gravel, sixteen or twenty
feet below the surface, where many other stone implements, with bones
of the mastodon, elephant, horse, and camel, have been found at
different times. A bow handle, or shuttle, of micaceous slate found
here will be shown in another cut with similar relics from a different
locality.[XII-14]
At Shaw's Flat, with bones of the mastodon, a stone bead of calc-spar,
two inches long and the same in circumference, was taken from under a
strata of lava at a point three hundred feet from the mouth of the
tunnel. The granite mortar shown in the cut, holding about a pint,
came from the same mining town.
[Illustration: Granite Mortar--Shaw's Flat.]
[Illustration: Granite Mortar--Gold Springs Gulch.]
[Illustration: Granite Dish--Gold Springs Gulch.]
At Blanket Creek, near Sonora, stone relics and bones of the mastodon
were found together in 1855.[XII-15] Wood's Creek was another locality
where stone relics with fossil bones, including those of the tapir,
are reported to have been dug out at a depth of twenty to forty feet.
The mortar and pestle shown in the cut is one of many stone implements
found, with fossil bones, at Gold Springs Gulch, in 1863, at a depth
of sixteen feet in auriferous gravel, like the most of such relics. It
is twelve and a half inches in diameter, weighs thirty pounds, and
holds about two quarts. The cross-lines pecked in on the sides with
some sharp instrument, are of rare occurrence if not unique. Among the
other implements found here, are what Mr Voy describes as "discoidal
stones, or perhaps spinal whorls. They are from three to four inches
in diameter, and about an inch and a half thick, both sides being
concave, with centre perforated. It has been suggested that these
stones were used in certain hurling games." They are of granite and
hard sandstone. The author has heard of similar relics in Ohio,
Denmark, and Chili. Another relic, found at the same place in 1862,
with the usual bones under twenty to thirty feet of calcareous tufa,
is a flat oval dish of granite, eighteen inches and a half in
diameter, two or three inches thick, and weighing forty pounds. It is
shown in the cut, and, like the preceding, is preserved in Mr Voy's
cabinet, now at the University of California. Texas Flat was another
locality where fossil bones were found with fresh-water
shells.[XII-16]
[Sidenote: CALAVERAS COUNTY.]
Calaveras County has also yielded many interesting relics of a past
age, of the same nature as those described in Tuolumne.[XII-17] The
famous 'Calaveras skull' was taken from a mining shaft at Altaville,
at a depth of one hundred and thirty feet beneath seven strata of lava
and gravel.[XII-18] The evidence was sufficient to convince Prof.
Whitney and other scientific men that this skull was actually found as
claimed, although on the other hand some doubt and not a little
ridicule have been expressed about the subject. Many stone mortars
and mastodon-bones have been found about Altaville and Murphy's, but
not under lava.[XII-19]
At San Andrés, in 1864, according to sworn statements in Mr Voy's
possession, large stone mortars were taken from a layer of cemented
gravel six feet thick, lying under the following strata:--coarse
sedimentary volcanic material, five feet; sand and gravel, one hundred
feet; brownish volcanic ash, three feet; cemented sand, four feet;
blueish volcanic sand, fifteen feet. At the Chili Gulch, near
Mokelumne Hill, the skull of a rhinoceros is reported to have been
found in 1863.[XII-20]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: STONE HAMMERS.]
[Illustration: Mortar from Shingle Springs.]
[Illustration: Stone Hammer--Spanish Flat.]
The mortar shown in the cut was found in gravel at a depth of ten
feet, at Shingle Springs in El Dorado County. At Georgetown and
vicinity there were found at different dates, large stone dishes very
similar to that at Gold Springs Gulch, shown in a preceding cut;
grooved stones like those at Spanish Flat, soon to be mentioned; and
mortars resembling that at Kincaid Flat. At Spanish Flat were found
several oval stones with grooves round their circumference, as shown
in the preceding cut, and weighing from a pound and a half to two
pounds. They were apparently used as hammers or weapons by fitting a
withe handle round them at the groove. Many other mortars and stone
implements were taken from the same locality, including two pendants,
shuttles, or bow-handles, very well worked from greenstone, five or
six inches long, and about one inch thick in the middle. These two
relics, together with a similar one from Table Mountain before alluded
to, are shown in the cut. At Diamond Spring mortars were found at a
depth of a hundred feet, and both fossil bones and stone relics have
been taken from time to time from the mines about Placerville.[XII-21]
[Illustration: Stone Implements--Spanish Flat.]
In Placer County, mastodon bones are reported at Rockland, and stone
mortars and other implements at Gold Hill and Forest Hill. One dish at
the latter place was much like that at Gold Springs Gulch, shown in a
preceding cut.[XII-22]
In Nevada County stone implements have been found at different dates,
from ten to eighty feet below the surface, at Grass Valley, Buckeye
Hill, Myer's Ravine, Brush Creek, and Sweetland.[XII-23]
Fossil bones of extinct animals and stone implements like those that
have been described, and which I do not deem it necessary to mention
particularly, since such mention would be but a repetition of what has
been said, with a list of depths and localities, have been found,
according to Mr Voy's explorations, in Butte County at New York Flat,
Oroville, Bidwell's Bar, and Cherokee Flat; in Stanislaus about
Knights Ferry; in Amador at Volcano, Little Grass Valley, Jackson,
Pokerville, Forest Home, and Fiddletown; in Siskiyou at Trench Bar, on
Scott River, at Yreka, and Cottonwood; in Trinity about Douglas City;
in Humboldt, at Ferndale and Humboldt Point; in Merced at Snelling on
Dry Creek; in Mariposa, at Horse Shoe Bend, Hornitos, Princetown,--a
mortar thirty-six inches in diameter--Buckeye Ravine, Indian Gulch,
and Bear Creek; in Fresno at Buchanan Hollow and Millerton; and at
several points not specified in Tulare and Fresno.[XII-24]
* * * * *
[Illustration: Relic from San Joaquin Valley.]
[Sidenote: MISCELLANEOUS MINE RELICS.]
The cut shows a stone relic discovered in digging a well in the San
Joaquin Valley, imbedded in the gravel thirty feet below the surface.
"The material is sienite and the instrument is ground and polished so
as to display in marked contrast the pure white of the feldspar and
the dark-green or black of the hornblende. It is in the form of a
double-cone, one end terminating in a point, while the other end is
blunted, where it is pierced with a hole which instead of being a
uniform gauge, is rimmed out, the rimming having been started from the
opposite sides. In examining this beautiful relic, one is led almost
instinctively to believe that it was used as a plummet for the purpose
of determining the perpendicular to the horizon. So highly-wrought a
stone would hardly have been used as a sinker for a fishing-net: it
may have been suspended from the neck as a personal ornament. When we
consider its symmetry of form, the contrast of colors brought out by
the process of grinding and polishing, and the delicate drilling of
the hole through a material so liable to fracture, we are free to say
it affords an exhibition of the lapidary's skill superior to anything
yet furnished by the Stone Age of either continent," at least such is
Mr Foster's conclusion. Prof. Whitney states that he has two or three
similar implements, and that they are generally regarded as sinkers
for use in fishing.[XII-25] Mr Taylor tells us that he saw in 1852, on
a high mesa, probably a league in circumference, on or near the Merced
River, thousands of small mounds, five or six feet high, and
apparently of earth only.[XII-26] Capron says that on the plains of
San Joaquin "are found immense mounds of earth, which present
evidences of their great antiquity. It is supposed that they were
thrown up, by the Indians, for observatories, from which to survey the
floods, or as places of resort for safety when the plains became
suddenly inundated, and the ranging hunters were caught far in the
interior."[XII-27] In the banks of a creek near Martinez, resting on
yellow clay, under five feet of surface soil, a mortar and pestle were
recently found by some boys, according to a local newspaper. The
mortar was about sixty inches in circumference, and weighed nearly two
hundred pounds. "It has the form of a slightly flattened well-rounded
duck egg; and has evidently been artificially shaped in exterior form,
as well as in the bowl, and looks as fresh as if it had but yesterday
been turned off from the Indian sculptor's hands, while the polish of
the pestle is smooth and lustrous, as if it had been in daily use for
the hundred or two years, at least, that it must have been lying under
the inverted mortar, as shown by the level of five-feet accumulations
of the valley-surface stratum of soil above the yellow clay upon which
it was found, together with the partially-decomposed remains of a
human frame."[XII-28]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SHELL MOUNDS.]
[Sidenote: SAN FRANCISCO RELICS.]
[Illustration: Relics from a Shell-Mound--San Francisco.]
Only one class of Californian antiquities remains to be mentioned--the
shell mounds. They are probably very numerous, and a thorough
examination of their contents could hardly fail to be here as it has
proved in Europe, a source of very important results in connection
with ethnological studies. Little or nothing has been done in the way
of such an examination, although a few mounds have been opened in
excavating for roads or foundations of buildings. These few have
yielded numerous stone, bone, and shell implements and ornaments,
together with human remains, as is reported, but the relics have been
for the most part lost or scattered, and submitted to no scientific
examination and comparison. Dr Yates sent to the Smithsonian
Institute, in 1869, a collection of relics taken from mounds in
Alameda County. It is not expressly stated that these were shell
mounds, although I have heard of the existence of several in that
county. This collection included, "stone pestles, perforators or awls,
sinkers, a phallus, spindles, a soapstone ladle, stone mortar and
pestle, pipe bowls, shell and perforated stone ornaments, an ancient
awl and serrated implements of bone."[XII-29] A very large shell mound
is reported near San Pablo, in Contra Costa County. It is said to be
almost a mile long and a half a mile wide, and its surface is covered
with shrubbery. The shells composing this mound are those of the
oyster, clam, and mussel, all having been exposed to the action of
fire, and nearly all broken. Fragments of pottery made of red clay are
found on the surface and near the top.[XII-30] Many smaller shell
mounds are reported in the vicinity of San Mateo, and one has been
opened in making a road at Saucelito during the present year,
furnishing many stone relics, of which I have no particular
description. Quite a number of mounds are known to exist on the
peninsula of San Francisco, several being in the vicinity of the silk
factory on the San Bruno road. One of them covered an area of two
acres, was at least twenty-five feet deep, and from it were taken
arrow-heads, hammers, and many other relics. One of these shell
mounds, near the old Bay View race track is being opened by Chinamen
engaged in preparation for some building, as I write this chapter. Mr
James Deans, of whose explorations I shall have more to say when
treating of the antiquities of British Columbia, has brought me a
large number of stone and bone relics taken from this deposit, the
different classes of which are illustrated in the accompanying cut.
Fig. 1 is an awl of deer-bone, and fig. 2 is another implement of the
same material, curiously grooved at the end. These bone implements
occur by thousands, being from three to eight inches in length. Fig.
3, 4, are perhaps stone sinkers, or as is thought by some, weights
used in weaving, symmetrically formed, the former from diorite, the
latter from sandstone, and not polished. Fig. 3 is four inches long,
and an inch and a half in its greatest diameter. Hundreds of these
pear-shaped weights are found in the mounds, but the end is usually
broken off, as is the case with fig. 4. Fig. 5 is an implement carved
from a black clayey slate, and has a brightly polished surface. It is
four inches long, one inch in diameter at the larger end, and three
quarters of an inch at the smaller. It is hollow, but the bore
diminishes in size regularly from each end, until at a point about an
inch and a half from the smaller end it is only a quarter of an inch
in diameter. I have no idea what purpose this implement was used for,
unless it served as a handle for a small knife or awl, or possibly as
a pipe.
* * * * *
Such is the rather fragmentary and unsatisfactory information I am
able to present respecting aboriginal relics in California. Doubtless
there are many relics, and valuable scraps of information respecting
the circumstances of their discovery, in the possession of
individuals, of which no mention is made in this chapter--indeed, I
expect to hear of a hundred such cases within a month after the
appearance of this volume; but many years must necessarily elapse
before a satisfactory and comprehensive account of the antiquities of
our state can be written, and in the meantime there is a promising
field for patient investigation. The difference, after all, between
this chapter and many of those that precede it, in respect to
thoroughness, is more apparent than real; that is, it results
naturally from the nature of north-western remains. For if there were
architectural monuments, pyramids, temples, and fortifications, or
grand sculptured idols and decorations, in California and her sister
states, there is no doubt that such monuments would have been ere this
more thoroughly explored than those of Palenque; and on the other
hand, respecting the only classes of antiquities found in the
Northwest, there yet remains as much or more to learn in Mexico and
Central America as in the Pacific United States.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: ANTIQUITIES OF NEVADA.]
Respecting the antiquities of Nevada, I have only the following
account of a ruined city in the south-eastern part of the state,
discovered by what is spoken of as the 'Morgan Exploring Expedition,'
and described by a correspondent of the _New York Tribune_. "On
October fifteenth, in the centre of a large valley we discovered some
Indian salt works, but there were no signs of their having been lately
used. In the southern section of the same valley, was a curious
collection of rocks, mounds and pillars, covering several acres in
extent and resembling the ruins of an ancient city. We saw some
remnants of what had once been arches, with keystones still perfect,
and a number of small stone pillars constructed with a peculiar kind
of red mortar or cement, set upright about twenty feet apart, as if
they had been used to support an aqueduct for conveying water from a
large stream half a mile distant, into the outskirts of the city. In
some places the lines of streets were made distinctly visible by the
great regularity of the stones. These streets were now covered with
sand many feet deep, and seemed to run at right angles to each other.
Some of the stones had evidently been cut into squares with hard
tools, although their forms had been nearly destroyed by centuries of
time. The impression forced upon our minds was that the place had been
once inhabited by human beings somewhat advanced in civilization. Many
traders noticed the existence of similar ruins in other sections of
the country between the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. They may
probably be the sites of once flourishing fields and habitations of
the ancient Aztecs."[XII-31] It is just possible that the New Mexican
type of ruins extends across into Nevada as it is known to into Utah
and Colorado, and that a group of such remains was the foundation of
the report quoted. It is quite as likely, however, that the report is
groundless.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: SALT LAKE VALLEY.]
Mr Rae examined a group of burial mounds in the Salt Lake Valley,
Utah, and took from them "flint spear heads, flint arrow-heads, stone
implements and fragments of rude pottery." These mounds had the
appearance of natural sand-hills, as the people in the vicinity
supposed them to be.[XII-32] An article in the _Salt Lake Telegraph_
is the only other authority that I find on these mounds, and this does
not specify their locality. "The mounds, as they exist to-day, do not
exhibit much uniformity, but this can be accounted for by the
disintegrating action of rains and winds, to which they have been so
long subject. Immediately north, south and west of the largest barrow,
traces can be seen of others now all but obliterated, and the locality
bears unmistakable evidences of once being the site of very extensive
earthworks. In one mound or barrow only, the largest, were remains
found, and they were exposed on or very near the surface of the sandy
soil, in one or two large hollows near the centre. The other barrows
were destitute, at least on the surface, but what there may be below
it is hard to say. Of all the relics, except those of charred bone,
which are comparatively plentiful, and some in a state of
petrifaction, that of pottery is the most abundant, and to this day
some of it retains a very perfect glaze. Much of it, however, is
rough, and from the specimens we saw, the art does not appear to have
attained to so high a degree of perfection as among the ancient
nations that inhabited the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. The largest
piece of pottery seen was not above three inches square, and it
appeared, as did all the other pieces, to have formed a portion of
some rounded vessel, probably a cinerary urn or something of that
kind. Other articles were seen, such as a fragment of pearly shell,
several other shells, a white cylindrical bead, a small ring probably
a bead also, and a stone knife." There were also several nicely shaped
arrow-heads, of obsidian, agate, rock-crystal, carnelian, and flint.
Granite mills are mentioned in addition to the other relics.[XII-33]
The same authority speaks of an extensive fortification or entrenched
camp at the head of Coon's Cañon, about twenty miles south-west of
Salt Lake City. The works are now from four to eight feet high, and
the places of entrance are distinctly marked.
[Illustration: Rock-Inscriptions--Utah.]
[Sidenote: ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS.]
Remy and Brenchley note the finding of colored pottery at Cedar City,
indicating "that the Mormon city is built on the site of a
considerable city belonging to the Aztecs," for there is no state
anywhere in the north where the Aztecs did not live at some time or
other. Whole specimens of pottery are not found, but the fragments are
said to show a high degree of perfection; the same authors claim that
furnaces for the manufacture of pottery are still seen, and further
say: "At some miles to the north as well as to the south of Cedar,--to
the north near Little Salt Lake, to the south near Harmony,--are to be
seen great rocks covered over with glyphic inscriptions, some portions
of which, sketched at random, are accurately represented in our
engraving. These inscriptions or figures are coarsely executed; but
they all represent objects easy of recognition, and for the most part
copied from nature."[XII-34] From Carvalho I quote that "on Red Creek
cañon, six miles north of Parowan there are very massive, abrupt
granite rocks, which rise perpendicularly out of the valley to the
height of many hundred feet. On the surface of many of them,
apparently engraved with some steel instrument, to the depth of an
inch, are numerous hieroglyphics, representing the human hand and
foot, horses, dogs, rabbits, birds and also a sort of zodiac. These
engravings present the same time-worn appearance as the rest of the
rocks; the most elaborately engraved figures were thirty feet from the
ground. I had to clamber up the rocks to make a drawing of them. These
engravings evidently display prolonged and continued labor, and I
judge them to have been executed by a different class of persons than
the Indians, who now inhabit these valleys and mountains--ages seem to
have passed since they were done. When we take into consideration the
compact nature of the blue granite and the depth of the engravings,
years must have been spent in their execution. For what purpose were
they made? and by whom, and at what period of time? It seems
physically impossible that those I have mentioned as being thirty feet
from the valley, could have been worked in the present position of the
rocks. Some great convulsion of nature may have thrown them up as
they now are. Some of the figures are as large as life, many of them
about one-fourth size." The same author reports the remains of an
adobe town a mile further down the cañon, with implements--remains
said to have been found there by the first Mormons that came to the
valley.[XII-35] Mr Foster quotes from a Denver paper an item recording
the discovery of a mound in southern Utah, which yielded relics
displaying great artistic skill;[XII-36] and finally I take from Mr
Schoolcraft's work cuts showing inscriptions on a cliff in a locality
not clearly specified.[XII-37] Some remains in the south-eastern
corner of the state I shall mention in connection with those of
Colorado.
[Illustration: Rock-Inscriptions--Utah.]
* * * * *
About half a mile west of Golden City, Jefferson County, Colorado, Mr
Berthoud reports to the Smithsonian Institution the existence of some
ancient remains, at the junction of two ravines. They consist of a
central mound of granitic sand not over twelve inches high, with
traces of five or six shallow pits about it; all surrounded by traces
of a wall consisting of a circle of moss-covered rough stones
partially imbedded in the soil. South of the central mound is also a
saucer-shaped pit, measuring twelve feet in width and from fifteen to
eighteen inches in depth. At this point buffalo-bones and fragments of
antlers are plentiful, and pieces of flint with plates of mica have
also been discovered.[XII-38] Mr Farnham speaks of a ruined city
covering an area of one mile by three fourths of a mile, with streets
crossing at right angles, buildings of rough trap rock in cement, a
mound in the centre, and much glazed pottery--all this on the north
bank of the Colorado, four hundred miles up the river, and as likely
to be in the territory of Colorado as anywhere.[XII-39] Mr Foster
quotes from a Denver newspaper a report of large granite blocks, of
the nature of 'dolmens' standing in an upright position, on the summit
of the Snowy Range;[XII-40] and Taylor had heard through the
newspapers of pyramids and bridges in this territory.[XII-41]
* * * * *
There remain to be described in this part of the country only the
remains of aboriginal structures in the south-western corner of
Colorado and the south-eastern corner of Utah, remains which, although
made known to the world only through a three or four days' exploration
by a party of three men, are of the greatest interest and importance.
They are found in the valleys or cañons of the rivers Mancos and
McElmo, northern tributaries of the San Juan, on the southern
tributaries of which river are the ruins, already described, of the
Chaco and Chelly cañons.
[Sidenote: JACKSON'S EXPEDITION.]
In September, 1874, Mr W. H. Jackson and Mr Ingersoll, connected with
the United States Geological and Geographical Survey party, guided by
Capt. John Moss, an old resident perfectly familiar with the country
and its natives, descended both the cañons referred to, for the
express purpose of examining ancient structures reported to exist
there. Notwithstanding the brief duration of their exploration, as
they understood their business and had a photographic apparatus along,
their accounts are extremely complete and satisfactory. Mr Ingersoll
published an account of the trip in the _New York Tribune_ of Nov. 3,
1874; and Mr Jackson in the Bulletin of the Survey, printed by
government.[XII-42] The latter account was accompanied by fourteen
illustrations, and Prof. J. V. Hayden, Geologist in charge of the
Survey, has had the kindness to furnish me also with the original
photographs made during the expedition.
The Rio Mancos rises in the Sierra La Plata, and flows south-westward,
at first through a park-like valley, then cuts a deep cañon through
the Mesa Verde, and finally traverses an open plain to join the San
Juan. In the valley between the mountains and the mesa, there are
abundant shapeless mounds of débris, which on examination are found to
represent blocks of square buildings and circular enclosures all of
adobe, very similar apparently to what we have seen in the Salado
valley of Arizona. There is another resemblance to the southern
remains in the shape of indented and painted pottery, strewn in great
abundance about every mound, in fragments rarely larger than a
dollar,--not a greenback, but a silver dollar, the former being no
standard for archæological comparisons. I shall make no further
mention of pottery; the reader may understand that in this whole
region, as in Arizona and New Mexico, it is found in great quantities
about every ruin that is to be mentioned.
[Sidenote: RIO DE LOS MANCOS.]
The cañon through the Mesa Verde is on an average two hundred yards
wide, and from six hundred to a thousand feet deep, with sides
presenting, as Mr Jackson says, "a succession of benches, one above
the other, and connected by the steep slopes of the talus. Side-cañons
penetrate the mesa, and ramify it in every direction, always
presenting a perpendicular face, so that it is only at very rare
intervals that the top can be reached." Mr Ingersoll says: "Imagine
East River a thousand or twelve hundred feet deep, and drained dry,
the piers and slips on both sides made of red sandstone, and extending
down to that depth, and yourself at the bottom, gazing up for human
habitations far above you. In such a picture you would have a
tolerable idea of this Cañon of the Rio Mancos." For four or five
miles after entering the cañon, the shapeless heaps of adobe débris
were of frequent occurrence on the banks of the stream. The general
characteristic was "a central mass considerably higher and more
massive than the surrounding lines of subdivided squares. Small
buildings, not more than eight feet square, were often found standing
alone apparently." The high central portion suggests a terraced
structure like the Casa Grande of the Gila. One of the buildings on
the bottom, measuring eight by ten feet, was of sandstone blocks,
about seven by twelve inches, and four inches thick, laid in what
seemed to be adobe mortar. Somewhat further down the adobe ruins were
found often on projecting benches, or promontories of the cliff, some
fifty feet above the stream. Here they were circular, with a
depression in the centre, and generally in pairs. Cave-like crevices
along the seams were often walled up in front, so as to enclose a
space sometimes twelve feet long, but oftener forming "cupboard-like
inclosures of about the size of a bushel-basket." A small square,
formed by rough stone slabs, set up endways in the earth, was also
noticed.
[Illustration: Cliff House--Mancos Cañon.]
The first stone building particularly described, and one of the most
wonderful found during the trip, is that shown in the cut. The most
wonderful thing about it was its position in the face of the cliff
several hundred feet above the bottom, on a ledge ten feet wide and
twenty feet long, accessible only by hard climbing with fingers and
toes inserted in crevices, or during the upper part of the ascent by
steps cut in the steep slope by the aborigines. The cliff above
overhangs the ledge, leaving a vertical space of fifteen feet. The
building occupies only half the length of the ledge, and is now twelve
feet high in front, leaving it uncertain whether it originally
reached the overhanging cliff, or had an independent roof. The ground
plan shows a front room six by nine feet, and two rear rooms each five
by seven, projecting on one side so as to form an L. There were two
stories, as is shown by the holes in the walls and fragments of
floor-timbers. A doorway, twenty by thirty inches and two feet above
the floor, led from one side of the front room to the esplanade, and
there was also a window about a foot square in the lower story, and a
window or doorway in the second story corresponding to that below.
Opposite this upper opening was a smaller one opening into a reservoir
holding about two hogsheads and a half, and formed by a semicircular
wall joining the cliff and the main wall of the house. A line of
projecting wooden pegs led from the window down into the cistern.
Small doorways afforded communication between the apartments. The
front portion was built of square and smoothly faced sandstone blocks
of different sizes, up to fifteen inches long and eight inches thick,
laid in a hard grayish-white mortar, very compact and hard, but
cracked on the surface like adobe mortars. The rear portions were of
rough stones in mortar, and the partition walls were like the exterior
front ones, and seemed to have been rubbed smooth after they were
laid.
The interior of the front rooms was plastered with a coating of a firm
cement an eighth of an inch thick, colored red, and having a white
band eight inches wide extending round the bottom like a base-board.
There were no other signs of decoration. The floor was the natural
rock of the ledge, evened up in some places with cement. The lintel of
the upper doorway or window was of small straight cedar sticks laid
close together, and supporting the masonry above; the other lintels
seem to be of stone. A very wonderful feature of this structure was
that the front wall rests on the rounded edge of the precipice,
sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees, and the esplanade, or
platform, at the side of the house was also leveled up by three
abutments resting on this slope, where "it would seem that a pound's
weight might slide them off."
[Sidenote: TOWERS ON THE RIO MANCOS.]
[Illustration: Ground Plan--Mancos Tower.]
[Illustration: Round Tower--Mancos Cañon.]
The cut shows the ground plan of a round stone tower of peculiar form.
The diameter is twenty-five feet, and that of the inner circle twelve
feet,[XII-43] the walls being eighteen and twelve inches thick,
standing in places fifteen feet high on the outside and eight feet on
the inside. This tower stands in the centre of a group of faintly
traced remains extending twenty rods in every direction. The stones of
which it was built are irregular in size, laid in mortar, and chinked
with small pieces. The cut presents a view of this tower. The next cut
illustrates the small cliff-houses very common in the walls of the
cañon. This and its companions are from fifty to a hundred feet above
the trail; it is five by fifteen feet and six feet high, the blocks
composing the walls being very regular and well laid. Some of these
houses were mere walls in front of crevices in the cliff. So strong
are the structures that in one place a part of the cliff had become
detached by some convulsion, and stood inclined at quite an angle,
taking with it a part of one of the walls, but without overthrowing
it. Small apertures are so placed in all these cliff-structures as to
afford a look-out far up and down the valley. Rude inscriptions are
scratched on the cliff in many places, bearing a general resemblance
to those farther south, of which I have given many illustrations.
[Illustration: Cliff-Dwelling--Mancos Cañon.]
One of the most inaccessible of the cliff-buildings is shown in the
cut. It is eight hundred feet high, and can only be reached by
climbing to the top of the mesa, and creeping on hands and knees down
a ledge only twenty inches wide. The masonry was very perfect, the
blocks sixteen by three inches, ground perfectly smooth on the inside
so as to require no plaster. The dimensions were about five by fifteen
feet, and seven feet high. The aperture serving as doorway and window
was twenty by thirty inches and had a stone lintel. Near by but higher
on the ledge was another ruder building. These raised structures were
invariably on the western side of the cañon, but those on the bottom
were scattered on both sides of the river.
[Illustration: Cliff-Dwelling--Mancos Cañon.]
On the bottom "the majority of the buildings were square, but many
round, and one sort of ruin always showed two square buildings with
very deep cellars under them and a round tower between them, seemingly
for watch and defence. In several cases a large part of this tower was
still standing." One of these typical structures is shown in the
following cut. It is twelve feet in diameter, twenty feet high, with
walls sixteen inches thick. The window facing northward is eighteen by
twenty-four inches. The two apartments adjoining the tower, the
remains of which are shown in the cut, are about fifteen feet square.
They seem to have been originally underground structures, or at least
partially so.
[Illustration: Watch-Tower--Mancos Cañon.]
At the outlet of the cañon the river turns westward, flowing for a
time nearly parallel with the San Juan, which it joins very nearly at
the corner of the four territories. Many groups of walls and heaps
were visible in the distance down the valley, but the explorers left
the river at this point and bore away to the right along the foot of
the mesa until they reached Aztec Spring, very near the boundary line.
"Immediately adjoining the spring, on the right, as we face it from
below, is the ruin of a great massive structure of some kind, about
one hundred feet square in exterior dimensions; a portion only of the
wall upon the northern face remaining in its original position. The
débris of the ruin now forms a great mound of crumbling rock, from
twelve to twenty feet in height, overgrown with artimisia, but showing
clearly, however, its rectangular structure, adjusted approximately to
the four points of the compass. Inside this square was a circle, about
sixty feet in diameter, deeply depressed in the centre, and walled.
The space between the square and the circle appeared, upon a hasty
examination, to have been filled in solidly with a sort of
rubble-masonry. Cross-walls were noticed in two places; but whether
they were to strengthen the walls or had divided apartments could only
be conjectured. That portion of the outer wall remaining standing was
some forty feet in length and fifteen in height. The stones were
dressed to a uniform size and finish. Upon the same level as this
ruin, and extending back, I should think, half a mile, were grouped
line after line of foundations and mounds, the great mass of which was
of stone, but not one remaining upon another. All the subdivisions
were plainly marked, so that one might, with a little care, count
every room or building in the settlement. Below the above group, some
two hundred yards distant, and communicating by indistinct lines of
débris, was another great wall, inclosing a space of about two hundred
feet square. Only a small portion was well enough preserved to enable
us to judge, with any accuracy, as to its character and dimensions;
the greater portion consisting of large ridges flattened down so much
as to measure some thirty or more feet across the base, and five or
six feet in height. This better preserved portion was some fifty feet
in length, seven or eight feet in height, and twenty feet thick, the
two exterior surfaces of well-dressed and evenly-laid courses, and the
centre packed in solidly with rubble-masonry, looking entirely
different from those rooms which had been filled with débris, though
it is difficult to assign any reason for its being so massively
constructed. It was only a portion of a system extending half a mile
out into the plains, of much less importance, however, and now only
indistinguishable mounds. The town built about this spring was nearly
a square mile in extent, the larger and more enduring buildings in the
centre, while all about were scattered and grouped the remnants of
smaller structures, comprising the suburbs."
[Sidenote: CAÑON OF THE McELMO.]
[Illustration: Tower on the McElmo, Colorado.]
[Illustration: Round Tower on the McElmo.]
Four miles from the spring is the McElmo, a small stream, dry during a
greater part of the year. At the point where the party struck this
stream, portions of walls, and heaps of débris in rectangular order
were scattered in every direction; among which two round towers were
noticed, one of them with double walls, like that on the Mancos, but
larger, being fifty feet in diameter. Following down the McElmo cañon
aboriginal vestiges continue abundant, including cliff-dwellings like
those that have been described, but only forty or fifty feet above
the valley, and also the square tower shown in first cut. It stands on
a square detached block of sandstone forty feet in height. The walls
of this building were still fifteen feet high in some places, and
there were also traces of walls about the base of the rock. Another
double-walled round tower fifty feet in diameter found near the one
last named is shown in the second cut.
[Illustration: Building on the McElmo--Utah.]
[Sidenote: RUINS ON THE McELMO.]
Still further down the cañon, across the boundary line into Utah,
ruins continue abundant. A red sandstone butte standing in the middle
of the valley, one hundred feet high and three hundred long, has
traces of masonry on its summit, apparently intended to form a level
platform, and on one side, at mid-height, the structures shown in the
cut. The upper wall is eighteen feet long and twelve feet high, and
the blocks composing it are described as more regularly cut than any
before seen. The only access to the summit of the butte was by
climbing through the window of the building. Other remains, including
many circular depressions of considerable depth, and a square tower
with one round corner, are scattered about near the base of this
butte, or _cristone_. The next cut shows one of the cave-dwellings
near by, formed by walling up the front of a recess in the cliff.
[Illustration: Cave-Dwelling on the McElmo.]
[Sidenote: ABORIGINAL TRADITION]
The tradition relating to the whole, and particularly to this
locality, obtained by Capt. Moss from one of the old men among the
Moquis, is rendered by Mr Ingersoll as follows:--"Formerly the
aborigines inhabited all this country we had been over as far west as
the head waters of the San Juan, as far north as the Rio Dolores, west
some distance into Utah, and south and south-west throughout Arizona,
and on down into Mexico. They had lived there from time
immemorial--since the earth was a small island, which augmented as its
inhabitants multiplied. They cultivated the valley, fashioned whatever
utensils and tools they needed, very neatly and handsomely out of clay
and wood and stone, not knowing any of the useful metals, built their
homes and kept their flocks and herds in the fertile river bottoms,
and worshiped the sun. They were an eminently peaceful and prosperous
people, living by agriculture rather than by the chase. About a
thousand years ago, however, they were visited by savage strangers from
the North, whom they treated hospitably. Soon these visits became more
frequent and annoying. Then their troublesome neighbors--ancestors of
the present Utes--began to forage upon them, and at last to massacre
them and devastate their farms; so, to save their lives at least,
they built houses high upon the cliffs, where they could store food
and hide away till the raiders left. But one Summer the invaders did
not go back to their mountains as the people expected, but brought
their families with them and settled down. So driven from their homes
and lands, starving in their little niches on the high cliffs, they
could only steal away during the night, and wander across the
cheerless uplands. To one who has traveled these steppes, such a
flight seems terrible, and the mind hesitates to picture the suffering
of the sad fugitives.
"At the christone they halted and probably found friends, for the rocks
and caves are full of the nests of these human wrens and swallows.
Here they collected, erected stone fortifications and watch-towers,
dug reservoirs in the rocks to hold a supply of water, which in all
cases is precarious in this latitude, and once more stood at bay.
Their foes came, and for one long month fought and were beaten back,
and returned day after day to the attack as merciless and inevitable
as the tide. Meanwhile the families of the defenders were evacuating
and moving south, and bravely did their protectors shield them till
they were all safely a hundred miles away. The besiegers were beaten
back and went away. But the narrative tells us that the hollows of the
rocks were filled to the brim with the mingled blood of conquerors and
conquered, and red veins of it ran down into the cañon. It was such a
victory as they could not afford to gain again, and they were glad
when the long fight was over to follow their wives and little ones to
the South. There in the deserts of Arizona, on well-nigh
unapproachable isolated bluffs, they built new towns, and their few
descendants--the Moquis--live in them to this day, preserving more
carefully and purely the history and veneration of their forefathers,
than their skill or wisdom." One watch-tower in this region was built
on a block of sandstone that had rolled down and lodged on the very
brink of a precipice overlooking the whole valley.
[Illustration: Ruined Pueblo on the Hovenweep.--Utah.]
[Sidenote: HOVENWEEP RUINS.]
From the McElmo Mr Jackson and his party struck off westward to a
small stream called the Hovenweep, eight or ten miles distant. Here
they found a ruined town, of which a general view is given in the cut.
Mr Jackson's description is as follows: "The stream referred to sweeps
the foot of a rocky sandstone ledge, some forty or fifty feet in
height, upon which is built the highest and better-preserved portions
of the settlement. Its semicircular sweep conforms to the ledge; each
little house of the outer circle being built close upon its edge.
Below the level of these upper houses, some ten or twelve feet, and
within the semicircular sweep, were seven distinctly-marked
depressions, each separated from the other by rocky débris, the lower
or first series probably of a small community-house. Upon either
flank, and founded upon rocks, were buildings similar in size and in
other respects to the large ones on the line above. As paced off, the
upper or convex surface measured one hundred yards in length. Each
little apartment was small and narrow, averaging six feet in width and
eight feet in length, the walls being eighteen inches in thickness.
The stones of which the entire group was built were dressed to nearly
uniform size and laid in mortar. A peculiar feature here was in the
round corners, one at least appearing upon nearly every little house.
They were turned with considerable care and skill; being two curves,
all the corners were solidly bound together and resisted the
destroying influences the longest." The following cut presents a
ground plan of this Hovenweep Pueblo town, and terminates the account
of one of the most interesting antiquarian explorations of modern
times.
[Illustration: Ground Plan--Town on the Hovenweep.]
I append a few brief quotations from the diary of Padres Dominguez and
Escalante, who penetrated probably as far as Utah Lake in early times,
referring to three places where ruins were seen, two of which cannot
readily be located. On the Dolores River "on the southern bank of the
river, on a height, there was anciently a small settlement of the same
plan as those of the Indians of New Mexico, as is shown by the ruins
which we examined." A ruin is also located on this river at the
southern bend, on the U. S. map of 1868. On the Rio de San Cosme, "we
saw near by a ruin of a very ancient town, in which were fragments of
metates, and pottery. The form of the town was circular as shown by
the ruins now almost entirely leveled to the ground." In the cañon of
Santa Delfina "towards the south, there is quite a high cliff, on
which we saw rudely painted three shields, and a spear-head. Lower
down on the north side we saw another painting which represented in a
confused manner two men fighting, for which reason we named it the
Cañon Pintado."[XII-44]
* * * * *
In Idaho and Montana I have no record of ancient remains, save a cliff
at Pend d'Oreille Lake, on which are painted in bright colors, images
of men, beasts, and pictures of unknown import. The natives are said
to regard the painted rock with feelings of great superstition and
dread, regarding the figures as the work of a race that preceded their
own in the country.[XII-45]
* * * * *
[Illustration: Rock-Carvings--Columbia River.]
In Oregon aboriginal remains, so far as reported, are hardly more
abundant. The artist of the U. S. Exploring Expedition sketched three
specimens of cliff-inscriptions on the Columbia River, which are shown
in the cut. Mr Pickering thinks that the figures present some
analogies to the sculptures reported by Humboldt on the
Orinoco.[XII-46] Mr Abbot noted "a few rude pictures of men and
animals scratched on the rocks" of Mptolyas cañon.[XII-47] Lord speaks
of little piles of stones about natural pillars of conglomerate, on
Wychus Creek, but these were doubtless the work of modern Snake
Indians, who left the heaps in honor of the spirits represented by the
pillars.[XII-48] A gigantic human jaw is reported to have been dug up
near Jacksonville in 1862;[XII-49] and finally Lewis and Clarke found
a village of the Echeloots built "near a mound about thirty feet above
the common level, which has some remains of houses on it, and bears
every appearance of being artificial."[XII-50]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: ANTIQUITIES OF WASHINGTON.]
In Washington, besides some shell ornaments and arrow-heads of flint
and other hard stone dug by Mr Lord from a gravel bank near the old
Fort Walla Walla, and some rude figures mostly representing men carved
and afterwards painted on a perpendicular rock between the Yakima and
Pisquouse, pointed out by a native to Mr Gibbs,[XII-51] there seem to
be remains of antiquity in only two localities. The first are the
mounds on Bute Prairie, south of Olympia. They were first found, or
mentioned, by Wilkes in the U. S. Exploring Expedition, in 1841, who
describes them as thousands in number arranged in fives like the 'five
spots' on a playing card, formed by scraping together the surface
earth, about thirty feet in diameter and six or seven feet high. Three
of them were opened, but proved to contain nothing but a pavement of
round stones in the centre and at the bottom, resting on the subsoil
of red gravel. The natives said that the medicine men in later times
were wont to gather herbs from their surface, as being more potent to
work their cures than those growing elsewhere. Since Wilkes' visit the
newspapers have reported the discovery of a large mound at the south
end of the prairie, twenty-five miles from Olympia, which is three
hundred feet high and nine hundred feet in diameter at the base. These
later reports state also that all the small mounds opened in recent
times have been found to contain remains of pottery and "other
curious relics, evidently the work of human hands."[XII-52]
The second locality where remains are found is on the lower Yakima
River, where Mr Stephens saw an earth-work consisting of two
concentric circles of earth about three feet high with a ditch between
them. The outer circle is eighty yards in diameter, and within the
inner one are about twenty cellars, or excavations, thirty feet across
and three feet deep, like the cellars of modern native houses
scattered over the country without, however, any enclosing circles.
These works are located on a terrace about fifteen feet high, bounded
on either side by a gulley.[XII-53]
* * * * *
In British Columbia, some sculptured stones are reported to have been
found at Nootka Sound, in which a fancied resemblance to the Aztec
Calendar-Stone was noticed; also during the voyage of the 'Sutil y
Mexicana,' a wooden plank was found on the coast bearing painted
figures, which I have copied in the cut, although I do not know that
the plank has any claims to be considered a relic of antiquity.[XII-54]
[Illustration: Painted Board--British Columbia.]
[Sidenote: DEANS' EXPLORATIONS.]
Other British Columbian antiquities consist of shell mounds, burial
mounds, and earth-works, chiefly confined to Vancouver Island, and
known to me through the investigations and writings of Mr James Deans.
Mr Deans has lived long in the country, is perfectly familiar with it
and its natives, and has given particular attention to the subject of
antiquities. He makes no great pretensions as a writer, but has made
notes of his discoveries from time to time, and has furnished his
manuscripts for my use under the title of _Ancient Remains in
Vancouver Island and British Columbia_. Like other explorers, he has
not been able to resist the temptation to theorize without sufficient
data on questions of ethnology and the origin of the American
aborigines, but his speculations do not diminish the value of his
explorations, and are far from being as absurd as those of many
authors who are much better known.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: VANCOUVER ISLAND.]
Burial mounds on Vancouver Island are of two classes, according as
they are constructed chiefly of sand and gravel or of stones. One of
the first class opened by Mr Deans in 1871, will illustrate the
construction of all. It was located on the second terrace from the
sea, the terraces having nearly perpendicular banks of fifty and sixty
feet respectively. By a carefully cut drift through the centre, it was
ascertained to have been made in the following manner. First, a circle
sixteen feet in diameter was marked out, and the top soil cleared off
within the circle; then a basin-shaped hole, six feet in diameter,
smaller at the bottom than at the top, was dug in the centre, in which
the skull, face down, and the larger unburned bones were placed and
covered with six inches of earth. On the layer of earth rested a large
flat stone, on which were heaped up loose stones, the heap extending
about a foot beyond the circumference of the central hole. Outside of
this heap, on the surface, a space two feet wide extending round the
whole circumference was sprinkled with ashes, and contained a few
bones also. Outside of this space again, large stones two or three
feet long were set up in the ground like pillars, five feet apart,
round the circumference; and finally the earth dug from the central
hole, or receptacle for the bones, was thrown into the outer circle,
and gravel and sand added to the whole until the mound was five feet
high, having a rounded form. Four smaller mounds, six and ten feet in
diameter, were opened in the same group, showing the same mode of
construction, but somewhat less order.
The second class, or stone mounds, which are much more numerous than
those of earth, differ but little from the others in their
construction, except that the final additions to the mound were of
stones instead of earth, and the stones about the circumference were
flat and set up close together. A piece of quartz sometimes
accompanies the bones, but no other relics are found. When the
skeleton is deposited face down, as is usually the case, the skull is
placed toward the south, or when in a sitting position, it faces the
south, seeming in some cases to have been burned where it sat. In a
few instances the skeleton, when it was but little burned, was lying
on the left side. The human bones invariably crumbled at a touch, and
the author states that this method of burial is altogether unknown to
the present inhabitants, who say their ancestors found them as they
are.
The mounds are often overgrown with large pine, arbutus, or oak trees;
in one case an oak had forced its way up through the stones in its
growth, reached its full size, decayed, and the stones had fallen back
over the stump. They are often in groups, and in such cases the
central one is always most carefully constructed, and a remarkable
circumstance is that sometimes the surrounding heaps contain only
children's bones. Of course this suggests a sacrifice of children or
slaves at a chief's funeral, although there may be some other
explanation. Some stones weighing a ton are found over the human
remains. Traces of cedar bark or boards are found in some of the
cairns, in which the bones were apparently enclosed; and in a few
others a small empty chamber was formed over the flat covering stone.
Near Comox, one hundred and thirty miles north-west of Victoria, a
group of mounds were examined in 1872-3, and found to be built of sea
sand and black mold, mixed with some shells. They were from five to
fifty yards in circumference. In one by the side of a very large skull
was deposited a piece of coal; and in another with a very peculiar
flattened skull was a child's tooth. Both these skulls are said to
have been covered with baked clay, and are now in the collection of
the Society of Natural History in Montreal. One mound in this vicinity
is fifty feet high and of oval shape. In its centre only a few feet
below the surface were found burnt skeletons of children not over
twelve years old, which seemed to have been enclosed in a box of
cedar--of which only a brown dust remains--and covered with two feet
of stones and one foot of shells. There is a spring of fine water some
fifty yards from this mound, of which, from superstitious motives no
Indian will drink. One rectangular cairn, ten by twelve feet, was
found, but even in this the central receptacle was circular. The body
in this mound showed no signs of burning, the head pointed northward,
and a pencil-shaped stone sharp at both ends was deposited with the
human remains.
* * * * *
Shell mounds are described as very abundant throughout Vancouver
Island, and also on the mainland, and all are composed of species of
shells still common in the coast waters. One at Comox covers three
acres, and is from two to fourteen feet deep. The relics discovered in
mounds of this class include stone hammers; arrow-points of flint,
slate, and of a hard green stone; spear-heads, knives, needles, and
awls, of stone and bone, one of the knives being sixteen inches long
and of whale-bone; bone wedges, sometimes grooved; and finally stone
mortars, comparatively few in number, since acorns and seeds were not
apparently a favorite article of food. Human skeletons also occur in
the shell mounds. At Comox a skeleton is said to have been found with
a bone knife broken off in one of the bones. A shell bracelet was
taken from a mound at Esquimalt; and from another was dug a stone dish
or paint-pot, carved to represent a man holding a mountain sheep. The
man was the handle on one side, the sheep's head on the other, and the
cup was hollowed out in the sheep's back. Mr Deans believes he can
distinguish two distinct types of skulls in Vancouver Island--the
'long-headed' in the older cairns, and the 'broad-headed' in the shell
mounds and modern graves: and this distinction is independent of
artificial flattening, which it seems was practiced in a majority of
cases on skulls of both types.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: EARTH-WORKS.]
In addition to the mounds, Mr Deans states that earth-works very
similar to those found in the eastern states are found at many
localities in British Columbia. Indeed, he has sent me several plans,
cut from Squier's work on the antiquities of New York, which by a
simple change in the names of creeks and in the scale would represent
equally well the north-western works. At Beacon Hill, near Victoria, a
point one hundred feet high extends three hundred feet into the sea;
an embankment with a ditch still six feet deep, stretches across on
the land side and protects the approach; there are low mounds on the
enclosed area, the remnants of ancient dwellings, and down the steep
banks are heaps of shells, with ashes, bones of sea-fowl, deer, elk,
and bears, among which are some spear and arrow points, needles, etc.
On the summit of Beacon Hill, near by, are burial cairns of the usual
type.
Another earth-work was examined by Mr Deans at Baines Sound and Deep
Bay. This was an oval embankment surrounded at the base by a ditch,
close to the water on the bay side, but now seventy yards from
high-water mark on the side next the sound, although originally at the
water edge. From the bottom of the ditch to the top of the embankment
or mound is forty feet, and at the summit a parapet bank now four feet
high encloses an area of over an acre. On the sound side is an opening
from which a road runs down the slope of the mound and across the
ditch by a kind of earthen bridge. Excavation showed a depth of nine
feet of shells, ashes, and black loam. Many burial mounds are
scattered about which have not been opened.
I am inclined to regard Mr Deans' reports as trustworthy, although of
course additional authorities are required before the accuracy of his
observations respecting the burial mounds, and the existence of
earthworks bearing a strong resemblance, as he claims, to those of the
eastern states can be fully accepted. Respecting the mounds I quote in
a note from Mr Forbes, the only other authority I have been able to
find on the subject.[XII-55]
In Alaska I find no record of any antiquities whatever, although many
curious specimens of aboriginal art, made by the natives still
inhabiting the country since the coming of Europeans, have been
brought away by travelers. Cook saw in the country several artificial
stone hillocks, which seemed to him of great antiquity, but he also
noted that each native added a stone to burial heaps on passing; and
Schewyrin and Durnew found on one of the Aleutian Islands three round
copper plates bearing letters and leaf-work, said to have been thrown
up by the sea; but I suppose there is no evidence that they were of
aboriginal origin.[XII-56]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CONCLUSION.]
Thus have I gone over the whole extent of the Pacific States from the
southern isthmus to Bering Strait, carefully examining, so far as
written records could enable me to do so, every foot of this broad
territory, in search for the handiwork of its aboriginal inhabitants.
Practically I have given in the preceding pages all that has been
written on the subject. Before a perfect account of all that the
Native Races have left can be written, before material relics can
reveal all they have to tell about the peoples whose work they are, a
long and patient work of exploration and study must be performed--a
work hardly commenced yet even in the thickly populated centres of old
world learning, and still less advanced naturally in the broad new
fields and forests of the Far West. In this volume the general reader
may find an accurate and comprehensive if not a very fascinating
picture of all that aboriginal art has produced; the student of
ethnological topics may found his theories on all that is known
respecting any particular monument here spread before him, rather than
on a partial knowledge derived by long study from the accounts in
works to which he has access, contradicted very likely in other works
not consulted,--and many a writer has subjected himself to ridicule by
resting an important part of his favorite theory on a discovery by
Smith, which has been proved an error or a hoax by Jones and Brown;
the antiquarian student may save himself some years of hard labor in
searching between five hundred and a thousand volumes for information
to which he is here guided directly, even if he be unwilling to take
his information at second hand; and finally, the explorer who proposes
to examine a certain section of the country, may acquaint himself by a
few hours' reading with all that previous explorers have done or
failed to do, and by having his attention specially called to their
work will be able to correct their errors and supply what they have
neglected.
If the work in this volume shall prove to have been sufficiently well
done to serve, in the manner indicated above, as a safe foundation for
systematic antiquarian research in the future, the author's aim will
be realized and his labor amply repaid.
FOOTNOTES:
[XII-1] 'Since the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, down to
the present moment, relics of a lost race have been exhumed from
beneath the surface of terra firma in various parts of the continent.
While every section of the United States has produced more or less of
these ancient remnants, California has, perhaps, yielded more in
proportion to the extent of territory, than any other part of the
Union.' _Carpenter_, in _Hesperian_, vol. v., p. 357.
[XII-2] _Brasseur de Bourbourg_, _Hist. Nat. Civ._, tom. i., p. 179;
_San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Feb. 11, 1862; _Cal. Farmer_, Dec.
14, 1860.
[XII-3] _Blake_, in _Pac. R. R. Rept._, vol. v., p. 117.
[XII-4] _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Feb. 11, 1862.
[XII-5] _Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner_, in _Pac. R. R. Rept._, vol.
iii., p. 42.
[XII-6] _Blake_, in _Pac. R. R. Rept._, vol. v., pp. 56-7; _Cal.
Farmer_, March 28, 1862, Dec. 21, 1860. Also pottery, painted and
carved cliff-inscriptions, and lines of large stones on the hill-tops.
_Alta California_, July, 1860.
[XII-7] _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Feb. 11, 1862. 'On the South
Tule river, twelve miles from the valley, is what is called the
Painted Rock--a smooth flat rock horizontally supported by
perpendicular walls on either side about seven feet from the ground,
with a surface of 200 square feet smooth and level on the walled sides
on which is painted in no very artistic style, representations of
animals, reptiles, and birds, and rude paintings of men, women, and
children. The painting has without doubt been done by the present race
of Indians. None of the Indians now living, however, have any
knowledge or tradition by whom or when it was done. This rock and the
remains of their habitations in many localities on the different
streams, are the only indications of their long occupancy of this
valley.' _Maltby_ (Indian Agent at Tule River), letter of Aug. 10,
1872, MS. Painted figures in a large cave near the hot springs of
Tularcitos hills, east of Monterey; also on headwaters of the San Juan
or Estrella creek. _Cal. Farmer_, April 5, 1860.
[XII-8] _Schumacher_, _Some Articles found in Ancient Graves of
California_, MSS., presented by the author.
[XII-9] _Taylor's Indianology_, in _Cal. Farmer_, Jan. 17, 1862, March
9, 1860.
[XII-10] _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Jan. 22, 1864; _Cal.
Farmer_, May 23, 1862, March 6, 1863; _Carvalho's Incid. of Trav._, p.
249; _Saxon's Golden Gate_, p. 126; _Wimmel_, _Californien_, p. 13.
[XII-11] _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Feb. 11, 1862; _Cal.
Farmer_, March 28, 1862, March 6, 1863.
[XII-12] _Lord's Nat._, vol. i., p. 209. 'A quantity of round stones,
evidently from the brook, was found in a passage with a number of
skeletons; the destruction of life having been caused undoubtedly by
the sudden caving in of the earth, burying the unskilled savages in
the midst of their labors.' _Pioneer_, vol. ii., p. 221.
[XII-13] _Taylor_, in _Cal. Farmer_, April 20, 1860; _Wimmel_,
_Californien_, pp. 27-8.
[XII-14] 'In 1857, Dr. C. F. Winslow sent to the Boston Natural
History Society, the fragment of a human cranium found in the "pay-dirt"
in connection with the bones of the mastodon and elephant, one hundred
and eighty feet below the surface of Table Mountain, California. Dr.
Winslow has described to me all the particulars in reference to this
"find," and there is no doubt in his mind, that the remains of man and
the great quadrupeds were deposited contemporaneously.' _Foster's
Pre-Hist. Races_, pp. 52-4.
[XII-15] Elephant's tusk five or six feet long, found in 1860, ten
feet below the surface, and fifteen inches above the ledge in
auriferous sand; also, five years before, many human skeletons, one of
which was twice the usual size, with stone mortars and pestles.
_Sonora Democrat_, Dec. 1860; _Cal. Farmer_, Dec. 21, 1860; _San
Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Jan. 22, 1864.
[XII-16] Other reported relics in Tuolumne county are as follows:--A
tooth of an animal of the elephant specie, twelve feet below surface,
under an oak three feet in diameter, at Twist's Ranch, near Mormon
Creek, found in 1851. _Hutchings' Cal. Mag._, vol. ii., p. 248, with
cut. 'A tolerably well executed representation of a deer's foot, about
six inches long, cut out of slate, and a tube about an inch in
diameter, and five inches in length, made of the same material, and a
small, flat, rounded piece of some very hard flinty rock, with a
square hole in the center. They are all highly polished, and perfectly
black with age. What gives a peculiar interest to these relics is the
fact that they were found thirty feet below the surface, and over the
spot where they were found a huge pine, the growth of centuries, has
reared its lofty head.' These relics were found at Don Pedro's Bar in
1861. _Cal. Farmer_, June 14, 1861, from _Columbia Times_, May, 1861.
'An Indian arrow-head, made of stone, as at the present day, was
lately picked up from the solid cement at Buckeye Hill, at a depth of
80 feet from the surface, and about one foot from the bed-rock.'
_Taylor_, in _Cal. Farmer_, Nov. 9, 1860; _Hist. Mag._, vol. v., p.
52; _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Oct. 6, 1864.
[XII-17] 'An immense number of skulls were found by Captain Moraga in
the vicinity of a creek, which, from that circumstance, was called
Calaveras, or the river of skulls. The story was, that the tribes from
the Sierras came down to the valley to fish for Salmon. To this the
Valley Indians objected, and, as the conflict was irrepressible, a
bloody battle was fought, and three thousand dead bodies were left to
whiten the banks with their bones. The county in which the river rises
assumed its name.' _Tuthill's Hist. Cal._, p. 303.
[XII-18] 1, Black lava, 40 feet; 2, gravel, 3 feet; 3, light lava, 30
feet; 4, gravel, 5 feet; 5, light lava, 15 feet; 6, gravel, 25 feet;
7, dark brown lava, 9 feet; 8, (in which the skull was found) gravel,
5 feet; 9, red lava, 4 feet; 10, red gravel, 17 feet. _Cal. Acad. Nat.
Sciences_, vol. iii., pp. 277-8. 'This skull, admitting its
authenticity, carries back the advent of man to the Pliocene Epoch,
and is therefore older than the stone implements of the drift-gravel
of Abbeville and Amiens, or the relics furnished by the cave-dirt of
Belgium and France.' _Foster's Pre-Hist. Races_, pp. 52-4.
[XII-19] 'It was late in the month of August (the 19th), 1849, that
the gold diggers at one of the mountain diggings called Murphy's, were
surprised, in examining a high barren district of mountain, to find
the abandoned site of an antique mine. "It is evidently," says a
writer, "the work of ancient times." The shaft discovered is two
hundred and ten feet 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 labor.... No evidences have 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.'
_Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. i., p. 105.
[XII-20] Skulls obtained from a cave in Calaveras County, by Prof.
Whitney, and sent to the Smithsonian Institute. They showed no
differences from the present Indians, who probably used the cave as a
burial place. _Smithsonian Rept._, 1867, p. 406. Petrified mammoth
thigh-bone, three and a half feet long, two and a quarter feet in
circumference, weighing fifty-four pounds, found at a depth of
thirty-five feet, at Murphy's Flat. _Cal. Farmer_, May 23, 1862, from
_San Andrés Independent_. An arrastra or mill, such as is now used in
grinding quartz, with a quantity of crushed stone five feet below
surface near Porterfield. _Id._, Nov. 30, 1860, May 16, 1862. At
Calaveritas large mortars two or three feet in diameter, with pestles,
in the ancient bed of the river; at Vallecito human skulls in
post-diluvial strata over fifty feet deep; at Mokelumne Hill obsidian
spear-heads; at Murphy's mammoth bones forty feet deep. _Pioneer_,
vol. iii., p. 41; _San Francisco Herald_, Nov. 24, from _Calaveras
Chronicle_.
[XII-21] _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Jan. 22, 1864; _Wimmel_,
_Californien_, p. 13.
[XII-22] 'An ancient skillet, made of lava, hard as iron, circular,
with a spout and three legs, was washed out of a deep claim at Forest
Hill, a few days since. It will be sent to the State Fair, as a
specimen of crockery used in the mines several thousand years ago.'
_Grass Valley National_, Sept. 1861, in _San Francisco Evening
Bulletin_, Jan. 22, 1864. Same implement apparently found at Coloma in
1851, 15 feet below the surface, under an oak-tree not less than 1000
years old. _Carpenter_, in _Hesperian_, vol. v., p. 358.
[XII-23] 'J. E. Squire, informs me that a strange inscription is found
on the rocks a short distance below Meadow Lake. The rocks appear to
have been covered with a black coating, and the hieroglyphics or
characters cut through the layer and into the rock. This inscription
was, probably, not made by the present tribe inhabiting the lower part
of Nevada County. It may have been done by Indians from the other side
of the mountains, who came to the lake region near the summit to fish;
or it may have still a stranger origin.' _Directory Nevada_, 1857. A
human fore-arm bone with crystallized marrow, imbedded in a petrified
cedar 63 feet deep, at Red Dog. _Grass Valley National_, in _San
Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Jan. 22, 1864.
[XII-24] Two hand mills (mortars) taken from the bank of the Yuba
River at a depth of 16 feet. 'They are all made from a peculiar kind
of stone, which has the appearance of a combination of granite and
burr-stone.' The pestles are usually of gneiss. _Taylor_, in _Cal.
Farmer_, Dec. 14, 1860, May 9, 1862. At McGilvary's, Trinity Co., was
discovered in 1856, 10 feet below the surface, 'an Indian skull
encased in a sea shell, five by eight inches, inside of which were
worked figures and representations, both singular and beautiful,
inlaid with a material imperishable, resembling gold, which would not,
in nice, ingenious workmanship, disgrace the sculptor's art of the
present day.' _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Jan. 22, 1864, from
_Trinity Democrat_, 1856. Slate tubes dug up near Oroville. _Taylor_,
in _Cal. Farmer_, Nov. 2, 1860. A collar-bone taken from the gravel of
the 'great blue lead' not less than 1000 feet below the forest-covered
surface, in 1857. _Hutchings' Cal. Mag._, vol. ii., p. 417. Mammoth
bones at Columbia, Stanislaus Co., 35 feet deep; and a hyena's tooth
at Volcano, Amador Co., at a depth of 60 feet. _Pioneer_, vol. iii.,
p. 41. Some 30 different instances of the discovery of fossil remains
by miners have been noted in the California papers since 1851. _Cal.
Farmer_, May 23, 1862; also four well-known cases of giant human
remains. _Id._, March 20, 1863. An immense block of porphyry whose
sides and top are carved with rude mystic figures, in the Truckee
Valley. 'I noticed one cluster of figures in a circle, having in its
centre a rude representation of the sun, surrounded by about a dozen
other figures, one of which exhibited a quite truthful representation
of a crab, another like an anchor with a large ring, and still another
representing an arrow passing through a ring.' _Marysville Democrat_,
April, 1861, in _Cal. Farmer_, June 14, 1861.
[XII-25] _Foster's Pre-Hist. Races_, pp. 54-6.
[XII-26] In _Cal. Farmer_, March 6, 1863.
[XII-27] _Capron's Hist. Cal._, p. 75.
[XII-28] _Martinez Contra Costa Gazette._
[XII-29] _Smithsonian Rept._, 1869, p. 36.
[XII-30] _Foster's Pre-Hist. Races_, pp. 163-4.
[XII-31] _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Oct. 19, 1869.
[XII-32] _Rae's Westward by Rail_, pp. 162-4.
[XII-33] _Salt Lake Telegraph_, quoted in _San Francisco Evening
Bulletin_, Oct. 9, 1868.
[XII-34] _Remy and Brenchley's Journey_, vol. ii., pp. 364-5.
[XII-35] _Carvalho's Incid. of Trav._, pp. 206-7.
[XII-36] _Foster's Pre-Hist. Races_, p. 152.
[XII-37] _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. iii., p. 493.
[XII-38] _Smithsonian Rept._, 1867, p. 403.
[XII-39] _Farnham's Life in Cal._, pp. 316-17.
[XII-40] _Foster's Pre-Hist. Races_, p. 152.
[XII-41] _Taylor_, in _Cal. Farmer_, June 22, 1860.
[XII-42] _Bulletin of the U. S. Geol. and Geog. Survey of the
Territories_, 2d series, No. 1., Washington, 1875.
[XII-43] Ingersoll gives these dimensions as 33 and 22 feet
respectively, and speaks of three equi-distant doorways, apparently
alluding to the same structure.
[XII-44] _Doc. Hist. Mex._, série ii., tom. i., pp. 391-2, 434-5,
444-5.
[XII-45] _Stevens_, in _Pac. R. R. Rept._, vol. xii., p. 150; _Id._,
in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1854, p. 222.
[XII-46] _Pickering's Races_, in _U. S. Ex. Ex._, vol. ix., pp. 41-2.
[XII-47] _Abbot_, in _Pac. R. R. Rept._, vol. vi., p. 94.
[XII-48] _Lord's Nat._, vol. i., p. 296.
[XII-49] _Taylor_, in _Cal. Farmer_, March 20, 1863; _San Francisco
Evening Bulletin_, Jan. 22, 1864.
[XII-50] _Lewis and Clarke's Trav._, p. 369.
[XII-51] _Lord's Nat._, vol. ii., pp. 102-3, 260; _Gibbs_, in _Pac. R.
R. Rept._, vol. i., p. 411.
[XII-52] _U. S. Ex. Ex._, vol. iv., pp. 334, 441-2; _Foster's
Pre-Hist. Races_, pp. 151-2; _Portland Herald_, Sept. 27, 1872; _San
Francisco Morning Call_, Sept. 28, 1872.
[XII-53] _Stevens_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1854, pp. 232-3; _Id._, in
_Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. vi., pp. 612-13; _Gibbs_, in _Pac. R. R.
Rept._, vol. i., pp. 408-9; _Taylor_, in _Cal. Farmer_, May 8, 1863.
[XII-54] _Buschmann_, _Spr. N. Mex. u. der Westseite des b.
Nordamer._, p. 333; _Sutil y Mexicana_, _Viage_, p. 73.
[XII-55] 'In such localities, the general feature of the landscape is
very similar to many parts of Devonshire, more especially to that on
the eastern escarpment of Dartmoor, and the resemblance is rendered
the more striking by the numerous stone circles, which lie scattered
around.... These stone circles point to a period in ethnological
history, which has no longer a place in the memory of man. Scattered
in irregular groups of from three or four, to fifty or more, these
stone circles are found, crowning the rounded promontories over all
the South Eastern end of the Island. Their dimensions vary in diameter
from three to eighteen feet; of some, only a simple ring of stones
marking the outline now remains. In other instances the circle is not
only complete in outline, but is filled in, built up as it were, to a
height of three to four feet, with masses of rock and loose stones,
collected from amongst the numerous erratic boulders, which cover the
surface of the country, and from the gravel of the boulder drift which
fills up many of the hollows. These structures are of considerable
antiquity, and whatever they may have been intended for, have been
long disused, for, through the centre of many, the pine, the oak, and
the arbutus have shot up and attained considerable dimensions--a full
growth. The Indians when questioned, can give no further account of
the matter, than that, "it belonged to the old people," and an
examination, by taking some of the largest circles to pieces, and
digging beneath, throws no light on the subject. The only explanation
to be found, is in the hypothesis, that these were the dwellings of
former tribes, who have either entirely disappeared, or whose
descendants have changed their mode of living, and this supposition is
strengthened by the fact that a certain tribe on the Fraser River,
did, till very recently live, in circular beehive shaped houses, built
of loose stones, having an aperture in the arched roof for entrance
and exit, and that in some localities in upper California the same
remains are found, and the same origin assigned to them.' _Forbes'
Vanc. Isl._, p. 3.
[XII-56] _Cook's Voy. to Pac._, vol. ii., p. 521; _Neue Nachrichten_,
p. 33.