Arizona miner., 1866-10-13
A GREAT GEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY

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 The State Geological Survey of Ca,ie., has recently made discovery that win nn m tract attention all over the world snd n M will become notable fact in the bis,o.s" "4, geology. Every person of intelligence ia .' posed to know that tfc age of the esrtL " cording to the unanimous opinion of ,a.I gists, is not less than n million of vear. ,t1. there have beep successive epochs of anir. and vegetable life, the remains of wbicL .. found deep iu the rocks that the api,.I and plants of the earlier cpOchs differ I@ those now living on the earth; and thai, ,,,,s very lately, nothing had been found to sIo. ! that man lived upon on our globe before m ! beginning of the present geological era | few years since, however, some human bs,,' were found in England and France, sbovi,' ! that men lived in those lands in a or,,'es epoch, cotemporaneously with the hyeps a' rhinoccros, the elephant, and numerous o,S.. animals which had disappeared from gnr,. long before the beginning of our bis,orlE',
 records. This discovery made a great ,o,.' ton in the learned world, and was the I,'r
 of Iyelrs great book on "The Antionltv !,
 Mankind" The ancient human bones ofys
 rope were found tn the formation know,
 the lias; but now human skull has Is,,
 found in California m the pleiocene. muI
 older formation. This skull is, therefore n.
 remnant not onIy of the earliest known ,;.
 neer of this State, but of the oldest kr6v
 human being.
 An account of the discovery was given l., , evening, in the California Academy of Na,v al Sciences, by Prof. Whitney. The ,t,s was found in n shaft l50 feet deep, two n51I, 5 from Angels, in Calayeras county, by ham. , named James Matsbn, who gave it ,o N, { Scribner. a merchant, and he gave it to Is
 Jones, who sent it to the State Geolooi, b Survey. Prof Whitney went 10 the p,n [ examined it, questioned the persons who b, b had the skull m their possession, and b, i, l. entirely satisfied that it was found in ,s $ shaft, as represented There is some w,,, t now in the shaft, hut it Is soon to be sls o out, and then the Professor will resume E r examinations. The shaft passes through tu e beds of lava and volcanic tufa, and four ds,. o its of auriieruus gravel. The upper bed 4 2 tuia is homogeneous and without any c,s '- through which the skull could ln 'i been introduced irum above. Tie 5s. S lished volume of the State Survey on tbe GA '- ology of California states that man eris,s | here catempOraneously with the masta, 'r but this foSsi proves that he was hen bss t- the time in which the mastodon was knou d Co exist. Prof Whitney has divided the E
 imal pGleontology of the State into u n, epochs; the pleiocene, or the epoch befra y great volcanic eruptions which covered s.. ' part Of the State. and the pest -plfieccar I d the epoch after the ouptions. Most oi a u prominent animals, the fossils of which Lss $, been found here, such as the mastodon, al n pbaut, horse and buffalo, have not been 4 d countered in the -pleiocene, and all e a vegetables so far met there are of specle p, 'r now living in the State. We can nos vi e. unqualiliedly that man lived in CalifOnn k n fore Shasta and Mount I.assen and the bsl le melville Buttes and the numerous yolz5 'd peaks of the Sierras raised their heads io it q clouds before the era of the giaciers. vie U! came after the volcanoes, and swept down [, m sides m immense rivers Of ice beiort nl Iii great canOns were worn on the western 1s eS of the Sierra Nevada, and when the rvS $ were still running on what are now the d T. of the mountains.
 CT Casts of the skull, which is not entire, rs w be sent to the principal ethnologists dLl a. rope and the Atlantic States. witt nOSst id for their opinion of it. The facial angle R Ie al similar to that of a Digger Indian of the p's s- ent day.
 to It is scarcely necessary to say that the | he nouncement and the remarks of Profs. ld Whitney made a profound sensation in {
 Academy.-AhG.