Photos from the USGS

by JimP
All of the following photos were found in the Photographic Library of the United States Geological Survey.

The first photo was taken in 1919 at San Bernadino, CA on a low ridge south of Crucero Hills in "Mormon Pass". According to the USGS these piles are assumed to have been made by Indians but their significance is not known.The next photo is called the, "Mystic Maze." It was taken in 1917 in San Bernadino County, CA. According to the USGS the photo depicts, "Piles of stone raked into rows by early Indians, which intersect at various angles. Said to have been used in death rites by tribes older than the present ones."The next photo was taken in 1926 at Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho. According to the USGS, the photo shows, "Crescentric piles of rocks which weighted down Indian tepees."The next photo was taken circa 1960 at Death Valley National Park, CA. The photo's caption reads, "The near end of this alignment, which covers half an acre, resembles the head and coils of a serpent. At the far end is an oval mound of rock."The next photo was taken in 1916 at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, and shows a cairn said to mark the trail on Flattop.The following photo, taken in 1914, shows a topographer at work near a cairn in Southwestern Alaska.The next photograph, from 1909, shows what's labeled as a, "sheepherder's sandstone monument," in Cascade County, Montana.The following photograph is from 1889 and shows a stone heap in a field near Lake Ontario in New York State.Finally, this last photograph was taken in 1907 three miles ESE of Dana, MA in Worcester County -- Dana, MA was disincorporated in 1938 and some of it now lies at the bottom of the Quabbin Reservoir. There are only stone walls in the photo, but I thought it was an excellent reminder of what the land in Massachusetts once looked like.[Click here] to search the online Photographic Library of the United States Geological Survey.