Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/133

 1 12 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST |n. s., I, 1899

day's journey to cross them even where the hand of the enter- prising gold hunter has ventured to blaze the tedious way. The striking character of the present profile is shown in 4, plate V, by reference to which it may be seen that the cutting of the present valleys to such great depths has left the old stream-beds with their deposits of gravel, their treasures of gold, and (it is alleged) their relics of humanity high up toward the mountain summits (*). Here the miners seek and find the gravel outcrops and follow them far into and even through the ridges, the mean- derings being so clearly defined that the courses of many of the Tertiary streams have been traced and laid down on the maps and the old river systems practically restored.

Those who get little idea of the lapse of time not expressed in years must fail to comprehend what vast ages are suggested to the geologist by the terms Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleisto- cene, and Recent, but the magnitude of the events involved — the entire obliteration of the old topography and the carving out of a new California, including such gorges as the Yosemite and the still more sublime Hetch-Hetchy — will readily be appreciated, and must make a deep impression on every mind and lead to hesitation in accepting the propositions that man matured before these events were initiated and that he has witnessed and survived their consummation.

CATEGORIES OF GRAVEL FINDS

Having reached satisfactory and apparently final conclusions respecting the age of the Auriferous gravels themselves, it is in order to examine the various groups of associated phenomena with which archeologists must concern themselves. There are four categories of data to be considered :

A. The animal remains (lower orders),

B. The plant remains,

C. The remains of man,

D. The remains of human handiwork.

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