After nearly three weeks’ sojourn on the barren island of San Nicolas, a party of relic hunters reached Long Beach, California, loaded with skeletons, skulls, and ancient implements and ornaments of stone and shells, the remains of Indian tribes which inhabited the now almost desert waste in bygone ages.

There were 11 in the party which left Long Beach in the gasoline schooner San Clemente for San Nicolas Island, which lies 65 miles off the coast from Santa Barbara. Four days were occupied in the journey to the island owing to the dense fogs, and after landing the party, the schooner returned to Long Beach and the explorers were left to their work.

The party found 87 skulls buried in the sand of the island, but were only able to secure three entire. They made one excavation 20 feet square in which they found nine skeletons in a crouching attitude, as though men, women, and children had been buried alive. In another place, they found the remains of hundreds of bodies that had been burned, and some of the party believe that cremation was practiced by the ancient people of the island.

Positive evidence was found that the island was inhabited by two or more different races in the dim past, one of which was of great size, a peculiar characteristic being gigantic jawbones.