If we accept tentatively 3,500 as the number of Indians on the middle Kings River in midcentury, then we are confronted with the problem of backward extrapolation. For the Tulare-Kaweah region the probable decline from 1800 to 1850 was probably to the level of approximately 20 per cent of the original value. Direct application of this factor to the Kings River gives a value for 1800 of 17,500. This is manifestly far too high. For the Mono and the Miwok in the upper foothills many facts point to a population decline to approximately 70 per cent of the prehistoric value. Application of this factor gives 5,000 for the Kings River, a high but not impossible figure. Other considerations are worth mention at this point. In his diary of 1826 José Dolores Pico describes his adventures on the Kings River in January of that year. He was chasing stock thieves and trying to recover stolen animals. From January 10 to January 14 he beat back and forth along the Kings River, from the sloughs to the foothills, attacking every Indian in sight. The results were discouraging. He captured no animals, killed not over a score of natives, and was completely outmanoeuvered by the combined forces of the Wimilchi, the Notontos, and Chukamina. The entire tenor of the document suggests an active, competent, and quite powerful local confederacy of tribes. This diary of Pico describes the only expedition to the Kings River of which we have documentary knowledge between 1806 and the coming of the Americans. These facts suggest, first, that there was a sizable population which managed to maintain itself reasonably well for several decades along the Kings River. Secondly, they suggest that there may perhaps have been a slow migration of the more exposed valley people, like the Nutunutu, higher up the river. Both these factors would tend to keep the population decline to a minimum. In view of the confusion surrounding the evidence in this area and in view of the apparent inadequacy of the Moraga figures the aboriginal population of the middle Kings River may be set at 5,000, with the full realization that this value represents the best guess under the circumstances. The upper river was inhabited by the Mono groups, Holkoma and Wobonuch, for which an 1850 population of 1,700 was computed. The decline to 70 per cent may be accepted here without serious reservation; hence the original number would have been 2,340. Adding the values for the three sectors of the river we get 9,130 or, estimating to the nearest hundred, 9,100. KINGS RIVER ... 9,100 _____________________ UPPER SAN JOAQUIN, FRESNO, AND CHOWCHILLA RIVERS AND MARIPOSA CREEK