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]
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.
Stone Mortar—Kincaid Flat.
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]