Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1920-09-09
Homes Of Prehistoric Folk to Be Ex-
plored.

has been made up in California and |
channel islands on that part Of the
coast in California known as Canta
Barbara and Ventura counties during
the next six months. The party is to
be sustained by Stanford University |
largely and to less extent by several
UNCONVENTIONAL colleges in Southern
California. Anthropological and arch
geological students, who have spent
several weeks each on these islands,
say they are one Of the very richest
fields for work in that department. OF
knowledge on the Pacific Coast
The channel islands constitute Cali
fornIa's only archipelago, with the pos
sible exceptions of the rocky and scan-
ty Farrallone Islands. They have been
objects or romance, legends, curiosity
and mystery for a generation.
The islands are within eighty-two
miles OF CALIFORNIA; shore, yet are
unfrequen,ed, and years roll by with
visits to them of less than fifty persons
annually. Each island has its own
particular strange, uncanny traditions
OF the tribes Of red men, and each has
the countless traces of an OCCUPATION
by thousands and thousands of In
dams.
When Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. the
portuguese navigator, sailed UP the
coast OF California in 1912, he stopped
lot a day or two at each of the chan
mel islands, and his records bear testi-
mony that on the islands Of Santa Bar.
oara, Catalina, Clemente and St
lNichoias there were a vigorous and
lusty race of natives, who thronged the
shores of the little bays and head
lands," and gazed in mute wonder at
tne-"hlte-sailed ship of the navipators
Today the islands stand as thew did
more than $50 years ago, but the ma
tiVes are only memory, represented
by immense quantities of stone impIe-
ments, barrels of fine wampum and
carloads of human bones.
st. Nicholas Island lies eighty miles
Immediately opposite the little civ
OF San Buenaventura (recently called
by the more modern and easy name Of
Ventura) and is the most interesting of
all the channel islands from manv
points of view. AS far back as the
memory OF any person in Southern Cal
lfornia extends, hundreds of white
skeletons have dotted the valleys and
hIllsides. Strange utensils of serpen-
tine sandstone and steatite are found
there among the human bones. and The
island and its erstwhile inhabitants
nave history so curious that if is
dirhcult OF comprehension.
In 1885 the Franciscan padres in tbe
Santa Barbara mission, learning tho,
there were but sixteen of the strange
ana almost extinct human race then
living there, determined to rescue
them from the island They went over
IN sloop and succeeded, as they
thought, in getting all on board
AT the last moment an Indian woman
returned for her child and one Of the
frequent storms of the channel isIands
Sprfneing UP. the sloop was driven
away without her. The sloop went on
fne rocks of Point Conceptioa and all
were lost. "
Sixteen years later Captain Georee
Nldever and two men went from the
coast on a sloop to hunt otter off St
NICHOLAS On landing they were
IKE Crusoe, astonished TO discover
human footprints in the sand. Thew
saw no one, however. and a storm com.
PEELED them to put to sea. II was two
years thereafter that the adventurous
captain, revolving in his mind the sieb+
OF the footprints on the uncannv
iSiand' determined to 20 to discover
and bring over the lonely woman of
~hom he had vaguely heard. Men ac-
companied him and at length thew
saw on the surf-bsaten shore a woman
with long tawny hair, dressed in
queer garb Of colored bird skins and
scraplng with bone knife the blub-
Der from seal. They surrounded and
approached her stealthily, and. al
though suddenly confronted, she did
not appear in the least afraid but
and then, falling on her knees,
prayed to the sun. The wild woman
offered no objection when by signs
she was made to understand that she
was to go with them in the boat.
They reached Santa Barbara across
the rough sea and the first thing the
Indian woman saw was a man riding
a horse. She had never seen nor