Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-08-12
A CITY 10000 Years Old.

IN the current number of the Overland
Californian geologist reviews the geoIog-
ical evidence of the antiquity OF. human
settlement near the present town OF Chero-
kee, in that State, and estimates the age of
that most ancient of discovered towns TO
be not less than 10000 years!
The data for all such calculations are
necessarily uncertain, as they are derived
from the present motions of the continents
and present rates of erosion; still, from the
changes that have taken place since the
pioneers Of prehistoric California left
their traces On its ancient sea shore, there
can be no doubt that hundreds of centuries
must have come and gone.
The traces in question are numerous
stone mortars, found in undisturbed white
and yellow gravel of a subaQueous forma-
ton, not tiuviatile, underlying the vast
sheets of volcanic rock of which Table
Mountain is q part. In one instance a NOR
tar was found standing upright with the
pestle in it, apparently just as it had been
left by its owner. In some cases the NOR
tars have been found at the depth of forty
feet from the surface of the gravel under
lying Table Mountain. The distribution
OF the mortars is such as to indicate with
great positiveness the former existence of
a human settlement on that ancient beach
when the water stood near the level at
which they occur; time anterior to the
volcanic outpouring which Table Mount
ain records and anterior to the glacial
epoch. .,
The recent geological history of that re-
gion may be briefly summed as follows:
Previous to the placing of the mortars
in the position in which they have been
found the early and middle tertiary sea
level had receded to the position of the
coal beds underlying Table Mountain,
fully 1000 feet below the level of Chero-
kee. Subsequently, in the pliocene pc
riod, there was a further subsistence of
about 1900 feet something like 600 feet
occurring after the mortars had been
abandoned. All this, as has been noticed,
took place before the volcanic outfOws
which covered up all the ancient detrGtus
of the region, including that of the an
cient rivers (whose gravels have furnished
so much Of the gold of California; The
geological age of the river period was de-
termined by Lesquereux from specimens
OF vegetation, now extinct, collected in the
survey of the ancient rivers; specimens
indicating flora Of the pliocene age, re
tanning some characteristic miocene forms.
After the volcanic period the land rose
again, the time of emergence embracing
the glacial period and the new eroding
period in the sierra, during which the
states and the hard metamorphic green
stones and the GRANTEES were slashed with
canons 5000 feet deep by the action of ice
and running water. Taking the rates of
continental movement determined by yell,
our geolog1st calculates that the time re
quired for the changes thus outlined could
not have been less than 1900 centuries.
For period SO long preceding the glacial
epoch as the time when ancient Cherokee
was buried by the waters of the advanc-
ing sea his estimate is certainly not ex-
travagant, though it does transcend so
enormously the time men have been &C.
customed to allow for mans residence on
earth. Scientific american.