Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [262]
But investigators such as William J. Sinclair determined that implements found deep in such deposits might be recent. Sinclair (1908, p. 112) wrote: “The underlying Carboniferous limestone has been eroded into fantastic shapes by percolating waters during or after the deposition of the auriferous wash. . . . In a limestone region with underground drainage, it is quite apparent that implements of human manufacture which happened to be scattered on the surface would stand an excellent chance of reaching deeper levels through the many sink holes affording drainage ways to surface waters.”
So although the Gold Springs gravel itself might have been Tertiary in age it is possible, in light of Sinclair’s observations about sinkholes, that the implements found deep in the gravels might have worked their way down from the surface in relatively recent times. Therefore, all we can safely conclude is that the stone implements found at Gold Springs might be anywhere from several million to several thousand years old. The same is true of discoveries made at Kincaid Flat, Oregon Bar, and several other localities where the gold-bearing gravels were not capped by volcanic deposits of known age.
5.5.3 Tuolumne Table Mountain
Finds from mine shafts can be dated more securely than those from hydraulic mines and surface deposits of gravel. Many shafts were sunk at Table Mountain in Tuolumne County. Whitney and others reported that miners found stone tools and human bones (Section 6.2.6) there, in the gold-bearing gravels sealed beneath thick layers of a volcanic material called latite. In many cases, the mine shafts extended horizontally for hundreds of feet beneath the latite cap at a depth of over 100 feet below the latite (Figure 5.12).
Tuolumne Table Mountain was created by a massive latite flow which moved down the Cataract Channel, a Miocene course of the Stanislaus River, forcing the river into a new channel. According to R. M. Norris (1976, p. 43), the latite lava cap is 9 million years old and is 300 feet thick in the vicinity of the town of Sonora. Slemmons (1966, p. 200) gave dates for the latite cap and underlying strata at Tuolumne Table Mountain (Table 5.3).
Discoveries from the auriferous gravels just above the bedrock are probably 33.2 to 55 million years old, but discoveries from auriferous gravels whose positions are not specified may be anywhere from 9 to 55 million years old.
Figure 5.12. Side view of Table Mountain, Tuolumne County, California, showing mines penetrating into Tertiary gravel deposits beneath the lava cap, shown in black (Holmes 1899, p. 450).
TABLE 5.3
Age of Strata at Tuolumne Table Mountain
Age (millions of years)
Description of Formation
9.0
9.0–21.1
21.1–33.2
33.2–55.0
>55.0
Table Mountain latite member
Andesitic tuffs, breccias, and sediments
Rhyolite tuffs
Prevolcanic auriferous gravels
Bedrock
5.5.4 Dr. Snell’s Collection
The more important discoveries from Tuolumne Table Mountain add up to a considerable weight of evidence. Whitney personally examined a collection of Tuolumne Table Mountain artifacts belonging to Dr. Perez Snell, of Sonora, California. About this collection of artifacts, Whitney (1880, p. 264) stated: “In Dr. Snell’s collection . . . there were several objects which were marked as having come ‘from under Table Mountain.’” C. D. Voy said: “Among them was a piece of stone apparently designed as a handle for a bow. It was made of silicious slate and had little notches at the end, which appear to have been formed for tying the stone to the bow. There were also one or two spear heads, from six to eight inches long, and several scoops or ladles, with well shaped handles” (Whitney 1880, p. 264).
As can be seen from Whitney’s statements