This would seem to be pretty explicit, but, as we have said before, Prof. Whitney, in his formal report as the State geologist of California, reaches the conclusion that the auriferous gravels of the Pacific are all of the Tertiary Age. It is therefore not a little interesting to learn that numerous instances are recorded of the finding of human remains or the works of man in these gravels. Prof. Whitney mentions twenty such instances.9 Mr. Bancroft furnishes us a list of such discoveries, giving as his authority Mr. C. D. Voy, of the California Geological Survey, of Oakland, California. He states that Mr. Voy personally visited most of the localities where the discoveries were made, and took all possible pains to verify their authenticity, and in many cases obtaining sworn statements from the parties who made them.10 Two stone mortars and spear-heads, six and eight inches long, were found in the gravel under Table Mountain, just mentioned. These relics were found about three hundred feet from the surface. A hundred feet and more of this depth was of solid lava. At another place a stone bead was found three hundred feet from the mouth of the tunnel, under a thick layer of lava. Many other instances might be given of such discoveries, not always under lava coverings, but always in such instances that we are compelled to assign to them an immense antiquity. As, for instance, at San Andreas, according to a sworn statement in Mr. Voy’s possession, large stone mortars were taken from a layer of cemented gravel, overlain by one hundred and twenty-five feet of volcanic and gravel materials. Many similar instances are on record, but enough have been mentioned to serve the purpose of the chapter.11 As we have briefly gone over the ground on which the antiquity of man in America is, by some, referred to the Pliocene Age, it is but fair to notice some of the objections that have been raised. It is not necessary to point out that the only questions worthy to be considered are of a scientific nature. We must deny either the age of the gravels themselves or that the objects of human handiwork were found as claimed, or else that they are of the same age as the gravels. Prof. LeConte thinks, from the nature of the gravels and the peculiar circumstances which surround them, that they are not older than the close of the Pliocene Age. He thinks they, in fact, belong to the transitory period between that age and the Quaternary.12 But as we are considering the question of Pliocene man, it makes but little difference if the gravels do belong to the very close of that period. They may still be called Pliocene.