120 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
some observant miner happened to bring them to light. Specimens thus found, falling into the hands of such collectors as C. D. Voy, would naturally be added to the growing list of Tertiary gravel relics. The flat dish or platter found by Voy in this or a neigh- boring mine ' is identical in type with several of the specimens from the village site on the brink of the mine. A rough, round- ish mortar and a small handstone were found by Professor McGee on a ledge thirty feet below the brink of this mine where they had fallen from above ; and at Todd's valley, a few miles farther southward, a roundish bowlder some three feet in diameter, hav- ing a neatly shaped mortar in one side of it, was found resting on the bed-rock of a deep mine. This specimen had undoubtedly fallen in from above. An Indian dwelling was situated on the rim of the mine near by, and about it were scattered mortars of all kinds. A brush shelter in which the women grind acorns, a little higher up than the dwelling, contained at least a dozen pestles, both flattish and cylindrical in shape.
These significant relationships of Indian village sites and gravel diggings were repeated everywhere, and although Whit- ney observed the presence of the " Diggers/' he made the mistake of supposing they used only fixed mortars, that is, those worked in the surface of large masses or outcrops of rock. The fact is that portable mortars and grinding stones of diversified forms are and have been used by Indians in all parts of California. It is not to be supposed that miners would pay much attention to the origin of relics found by them in the mines, since they attached no particular significance to them ; so that between the unwary geologist, the unthinking miner, and the professional collector cultivating a prolific field, it is to be expected that a good many mistakes would be made.
No one can venture to say just what percentage of the finds reported by Whitney and accepted by him as evidence of an- tiquity are of the class here described, but certainly a large pro-
1 Auriferous Gravels \ p. 277.
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