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��6l8 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., I, 1S99
That such should be afterward dug up with the reopening of passageways and the shifting of the tailings is to be expected, for the search for gold under these old lava beds was not a straight- away boring of the mountains, but a driving and redriving of jJj tunnels in any direction that promised renewed finds of pay
K material. As a matter of course little attention was paid to the
7}| comings and goings of the humble helpers, and if miners came
I upon stray implements buried in the gravels it is quite natural
\ 1 that they should report them to the foremen or superintendents
■ I without seriously considering the question as to recent or ancient
»;| origin. Naturally little value was attached to such specimens,
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��as the real significance of their occurrence in the old gravel was at most but dimly understood.
Again, let us not forget, it would be quite within the bounds of probability that some fun-loving miner should seek amusement by reporting objects found about the camp, to the superintendent or others, pretending that they came from beneath the mountain. \\ There can be no doubt that practical joking of this character was
- } prevalent in those days, and that implements of the classes in-
$ volved in this discussion were known by the miners to excite
yi unusual interest in religious as well as scientific quarters. There
jrf are thus two ways in which errors might have crept into the
jj evidence — two ways either of which would lead to that repetition
of like finds which is considered so significant by advocates taf antiquity.
The Neale Finds. — The case cited in detail by Dr Becker may well illustrate what I have been saying, and this case, it should be noted, is a typical one and constitutes one of the strongest bits of testimony of its class on record. 1 Mr J. H. Neale was superin- tendent of the Montezuma mine, situated on the western slope of Table mountain, four or five miles southwest of the village of Jamestown. The gold-bearing gravels of the old river bed be-
]• * Geo. F. Becker, Antiquities from under Tuolumne Table mountain in Cali-
fornia; Bull. Geol. Soc. of America, vol. 11, p. 189.
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