The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1876-09-14
A City One Hundred and Eighty
Thousand Years Old.


In current number Of the Orer.
land a California Gcologist reviews
the geological evidence Of the antiq-
uity of human settlement near the
present town of Cherokee, 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 ne
cessarily uncertain, as they are de-
rived from the present motions of the
continent and present rates of ero-
sion; still, from the changes that
have taken place since the pioneers
of prehistoric California left their
traces on its ancient seashore, there
can be no doubt that thousands of
centuries have come and gone.
The traces in question are numer-
GUS stone mortars, found in undis-
turbed white and yellow gravel Of a
subaqueous formation, not fluviatile,
underlying the vast sheets of volcan-
ic rock, of which Table Mountain is
part. In one instance a mortar
was found standing upright, with
the pestle in it, apparently just as it
had been left by its owner. In some
cases the mortars have been found at
depth of forty feet from the sur
face of the gravel underlying Table
Mountain. The distribution of the
mortars is such as to indicate with
great positiveness the former exist
ence of a human settlement on that
ancient beach when the water stood
near the level at which they occur;
time anterior to the volcanic outpou-
ring which Table Mountain records,
and anterior to the glacial epoch.
The recent geological history of
that region 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 recedcd to the position of the
coal beds underlying Table Mountain
fully one thousand feet below the
level of Cherokee. Subsequently, in
the pliocene period, there was fur
Their subsistence of about fifteen hun
bred feet, something like six humid
red feet occurring after the mortars
had been abandoned. All this, as
has been noticed, took place before
the volcanic outhows which covered
up all the ancient de,riiu8 Of the re-
gion, including that of the ancient
rivers (whose gravels have furnished
so much of the gold of California J
The geological age of the river peri
cd was determined by LesqueIcux
from specimens. of vegetation, now
extinct, collected in the survey. of
the ancient rivers; specimens ihdica-
ting a fora of the pliocenn age, re-
tanning some characteristic miocene
forms.
After the volcanic period the land
rose again, the time of emergcnce
embracing the glacial period and the
new eroding period in the sierra, du-
ring which the states and the hard
metamorphic greenstones and the
GRANTEES were slashed with canons
three thousand feet deep by the act
ion of ice and running water, TAX
ing the rates of continental move
ment determined by Lyell, our geol-
ogists calculates that the time requi-
red for the changes thus outlined
could not have been less than eight
cen hundred centuries. For peri
cd so long preceding the glacial ep-
och as the time when ancient Cher
okee was buried by the waters of the
advancing sea, his estimate is GER
tainly not cxtravagant, though it
does transcend so enormously the
time men have been accustomed to
allow for mans residence on earth.
A New Enemy 10 the Corn.
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