Among the other fossil remains taken from this region are six genera of fish, a majority of them new, and fifteen species of fossil mammalia, including two llamas, three horses, an elephant, a dog, an otter, a beaver, a mouse, a great sloth, Mylodon, as large as a grizzly bear, and other forms.
“Thomas Condon,” writes Dr. Shufeldt in his memoir, “was the first scientific man to visit the Fossil Lake region, with the results already stated. Cope and his assistant Charles Sternberg came later, and gathered many hundred bones and bone fragments.” And in the preface to his “Tertiary Vertebrata,” Vol. III, page xxvii, Professor Cope writes: “The Tertiary formations explored in 1878 were the John Day, Loup Fork, and Equus beds. These were examined by Charles H. Sternberg both in Washington and Oregon; in the former near to Fort Walla Walla, and in the latter, in the desert east of the Sierra Nevada. The basin of an ancient lake, originally discovered by Governor Whitaker of Oregon, was found strewn with the bones of llamas, elephants, horses, sloths, and smaller animals, with birds, and all were collected by Mr. Sternberg and safely forwarded to Philadelphia. I examined this locality myself in 1879 and obtained further remains of extinct and recent species of mammalia found mingled with numerous worked flints.”
The reader will notice that Cope puts my expedition in ’78 instead of ’77 and that Dr. Shufeldt gives Cope’s visit to Fossil Lake as before mine, when, in reality, it was two years later.
On p. 420 of his memoir, Dr. Shufeldt writes: “We must believe that it still remains problematical whether man was there, and further comparative search is demanded to decide whence came, and at what time, those stone implements of human manufacture, commingled as they are with the bones of the animals, many of which are long since extinct.” And Professor Cope says on the same subject: “Scattered everywhere in the deposit were obsidian implements of human manufacture. Some of these were of inferior workmanship, and many of them covered with a patin of no great thickness, which completely replaced the luster of the surface. Other specimens were bright as when first made. The abundance of these flints was remarkable, and suggested that they may have been shot at the game, both winged and otherwise, that in former times frequented the lake.”
After I had written the letter already mentioned, having carefully gone over all the ground in the vicinity of Fossil Lake, and longing for new worlds to conquer, I started out one day on my pony through the desert, hoping to find another locality in which the wind had uncovered a fossil bed. I spent the greater part of the day in fruitless search, and was about to return home when I was attracted by the top of a dead spruce tree sticking out of a sandhill. The rest of the tree had been completely buried by the sand.
My curiosity was aroused, and I climbed to the top of the hill to examine the spruce. When I reached the top, however, I found myself looking down into a pleasant little valley, which had been scooped out by the wind, and, descending, I discovered that I had stumbled upon the former site of an Indian village. Places near where the lodges had stood were marked by piles of the bleached bones of existing species of antelope, deer, rabbits, etc. None of these bones were petrified like those at Fossil Lake.
Near the site of each lodge stood a large mortar, made of volcanic rock, with a pestle lying in it. They had probably been used by the squaws for grinding up acorns and other materials for bread-making. Doubtless a storm of sand had forced the villagers to flee for their lives without giving them time to save even these valuable mortars.
I found a spring of cold water which had built up a mound of white sand, and from the side of a sandhill I pulled out the back part of a human skull. I could not tell how large the village had been, as it extended into the sandhill.
I soon found where the ancient arrow-maker had had his shop by the great quantities of cast-off obsidian chips that covered the ground, as well as by the broken and perfect arrow-heads and spear-points, beautifully polished and finished, and the knives, drills, and the like that lay about. I did not find a vestige of anything made of iron.
Having secured a number of the obsidian points, which I afterwards sent to Cope, I started for camp; but I had delayed too long, and night overtook me before I reached home. My pony and I came near being lost in the desert. I gave him the lines, but I was much worried at not seeing the welcome glow of the camp fire, when I had thought that I must be near my tent. Finally I shouted, and at last heard a faint answer. But even then, owing to my deaf ear, I could not locate the camp, and had to wait until George came up and piloted me in.