Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/144

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HOLMES]
AURIFEROUS GRAVEL MAN
119

here were repeated at nearly every mine visited in Nevada, Placer, Eldorado, and Calaveras counties. At Forest Hill, Placer county, the Dardanelles mine, extensively worked in the early days by Richard Clark and others, has undermined and obliterated a half or more of a terraced spur or "flat," as such features are called in that country, formerly occupied by an Indian village. (See plate VII.) According to Mr Clark, who still resides in Forest


cebter

Fig. 2.—Section Showing Relations of Ancient Village Site to Gravel Mine.

A, Auriferous slates—bed-rock; B, Auriferous gravels, 250 feet thick; C, Great excavation made in gravels by hydraulic mining; D, Crumbled gravels, result of caving in; E, Ancient village site; F, Portion of village site destroyed by mine. The dark triangular figures in the talus show the distribution of artifacts resulting from mining operations.


Hill, this site has not been occupied by the natives since work began in the mine in 1852; but an hour's search brought to light a dozen mortars and grinding stones, twenty or thirty rubbing stones and pestles, together with several varieties of smaller tools. As the ground of the site sloped toward the mine, most of the larger, and especially the rounder objects, must long since have rolled into the great pit (figure 2), the gravel walls of which are, on the one side, upward of two hundred feet in height. Many of the objects obtained were already in the gullies leading into the mine, and each year numbers must have gone over to become intermingled with the gravels, where they would remain for good unless