[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.