The natives in the neighborhood of Mount Shasta, in Northern California, have a strange legend which refers to the age of Caves and Ice. They say the Great Spirit made Mount Shasta first: "_Boring a hole in the sky_," (the heavens cleft in twain of the Edda?) "using a _large stone_ as an auger," (the fall of stones and pebbles?) "he pushed down _snow and ice until they reached the desired height;_ then he stepped from cloud to cloud down to _the great icy pile_, and from it to the earth, where he planted the first trees by merely putting his finger into the soil here and there. _The sun began to melt the snow; the snow produced water; the water ran down the sides of the mountains_, refreshed the trees, and made rivers. The Creator gathered the leaves that fell from the trees, blew upon them, and they became birds," etc.[2] This is a representation of the end of the Glacial Age. But the legends of these Indians of Mount Shasta go still further. After narrating, as above, the fall of a [1. Balboa, "Histoire du Pérou," p. 4. 2. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 90.] {p. 203} stone from heaven, and the formation of immense masses of ice, which subsequently melted and formed rivers, and after the Creator had made trees, birds,. and animals, especially the grizzly bear, then we have a legend which reminds us of the cave-life which accompanied the great catastrophe: "Indeed, this animal" (the grizzly bear) "was then so large, strong, and cunning, that the Creator somewhat feared him, and hollowed out Mount Shasta as a wigwam for himself, where he might reside while on earth in the most perfect security and comfort. So the smoke was soon to be seen curling up from the mountain where the Great Spirit and his family lived, and still live, though their hearth-fire is alive no longer, now that the white-man is in the land." Here the superior race seeks shelter in a cave on Mount Shasta, and their camp-fire is associated with the smoke which once went forth out of the volcano; while an inferior race, a Neanderthal race, dwell in the plains at the foot of the mountain. "This was thousands of snows ago, and there came after this a late and severe spring-time, in which a memorable storm blew up from the sea, shaking the huge lodge" (Mount Shasta) "to its base." (Another recollection of the Ice Age.) "The Great Spirit commanded his daughter, little more than an infant, to go up and bid the wind to be still, cautioning her, at the same time, in his fatherly way, not to put her head out into the blast, but only to thrust out her little red arm and make a sign, before she delivered her message."[1] Here we seem to have a reminiscence of the cave-dwellers, looking out at the terrible tempest from their places of shelter. [1. Bancroft's "Native Races," vol. iii, p. 91.] {p. 204}