http://www.creationism.org/swift/DohenyExpedition/Doheny03Chinese.htm
IN Grapevine Canyon in southern Nevada, some 28 miles north of Needles, Calif., there is a remarkable cliff covered with ancient petroglyphs, usually termed wall-writings. These ancient characters were examined by a well known Professor of Geology in one of our California universities, and the following is an outline of his conclusions.
"1. The shallow hieroglyphics were made by human hands. Some of the characters strongly suggest ancient Chinese.
2. They were carved after the general topographic features of the district had been formed, and after the rock outcrops had been coated with iron-manganese oxides, but while that coating was still in process of formation.
3. The carvings were made at intervals over a long space of time.
4. Rock surface subjected to decay.
5. The rock face was then partly buried by stream-deposited gravel to a depth of 22 feet.
6. Later gravel deposit was slightly cemented and pebbles in it notably decayed.
7. Later intrenched to depth of 22 feet.
8. No water has run down trench for more than 40 years and perhaps 150 years.
9. Evidence of two distinct but minor climatic changes since petroglyphs were made.
10. Carvings many centuries old—and probably thousands of years old.
11. They are not older than the last interglacial epoch of the Pleistocene Period.
12. Closer determination requires study of much larger region.
13. The petroglyphs seem to merit a thorough investigation by expert archaeologists and comparative philologists."
At first thought the presence of ancient Chinese characters in Nevada would seem to indicate that our American Indians emigrated from Asia by way of Bering's Strait. In my opinion this is not so. I firmly believe that there was a Mongolian invasion of America, and probably more than one in the prehistoric Past, and that these invasions were bitterly resented by the American Indians, who were in possession of the soil. The outcome of this has been centuries of warfare, which is being carried on to this day.
I came to these conclusions, after spending three winters in Alaska, where for one year I lived among the Esquimaux on the Kuskokwim River. I learned to converse with them, I heard many of their traditions, and became well acquainted with a very learned Jesuit priest who was compiling a dictionary of the Esquimaux language. During this time I learned some interesting facts and came to some very definite conclusions.
1st. The Esquimaux are distinctly Mongols. They strongly suggest the Chinese. In my opinion they are a different race from the Indians.
2nd. The Esquimaux are a homogeneous people from Bering's Sea to Baffin's Bay. They inhabit 10,000 miles of the most inhospitable seacoast in the world. They speak the same language, use the same weapons, build the same boats and houses and yet the Esquimaux of Bering's Sea know absolutely nothing of those other Esquimaux inhabiting the Eastern Coast of America.
3rd. The Esquimaux of today live in a state of continual warfare with the American Indians. No Esquimau dares to go inland beyond certain boundaries. The Indians have driven them to the seacoast and are holding them there. The Russians arranged a truce between the Esquimaux and the Indians, during two weeks in August of each year for purposes of trade. After that the warfare begins again.
4th. They never inter-marry. The Indians hold the Esquimaux in utter contempt. If there was any blood relationship between the two races this would not happen.
My Jesuit friend and I discussed this question at length and came to this conclusion. That the Esquimaux are the remnant of a great Mongol invasion of America. That they probably came to America prior to the Ice Age. During the Miocene Period the Coast Range of California was emerging from the sea and formed a screen of protecting islands, similar to the coast line of British Columbia today. The Willamette Valley connected through to Puget Sound on the north and to the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys on the south in a vast system of protected inland waterways. Being such expert boatmen it is easy to see how they made the journey from Asia. They drifted across to the open plains of Nevada, where they found a country and climate similar to their Mongolian homeland, and left their inscriptions on the cliffs and in the caves. Attracted by the great buffalo herd, they made their way eastward and there they came in contact with the men from the South. Perhaps with the trained soldiers of the Mayas. They were driven northward until they came to the edge of the Ice-cap and there they made a stand. We concluded that this was some where near where St. Paul now is.
During thousands of years the pressure was maintained, and as the Ice retreated they were forced to follow it. Thus one branch made its way down the St. Lawrence River and came to Labrador. Another tribe went down the James River and came to Hudson's Bay. Others went down the Mackenzie to the Arctic, and still others went down the Yukon to Bering's Sea. As they could not come inland they were forced to make their living from the sea and gradually developed into the Esquimaux as we know them today. I am convinced if the American Indians were of Asiatic stock they would have amalgamated with the Esquimaux ages ago. That they have not done so satisfies me that they are a distinct and different race.
These ancient Chinese characters were discovered by Capt. Alan Le Baron cut into the wall of a cave in the State of Nevada. Capt. Le Baron's investigations are based on the theory that the high plateau forming most of Nevada and parts of Utah and Arizona is the oldest land on earth. There are geologic maps which show that this area has not been submerged under the sea for more than 40 million years. It is therefore argued that it is the logical place to seek for the origin of man.
Recognizing these inscriptions as strongly suggesting Chinese characters, Capt. Le Baron took the matter up with Mr. John Endicott Gardner, a student of Oriental languages, and interpreter of Chinese for the courts in Berkeley. Dr. Gardner was much stirred by the discovery and wrote to Capt. Le Baron as follows:
DEAR CAPTAIN:
I have just completed the very pleasant task of examining the photographic copies of the characters engraven on the rocks in the dim ages of the past, and now discovered by you in the State of Nevada, with the view of determining whether or not said characters could be identified with the ancient symbols forming the written medium of the Chinese people. As the result of such examination I do not hesitate to give the answer in the affirmative.
Considering the long interval between the two, the resemblance between them is astonishingly close. In fact some of your specimen characters were recognized by me as ancient Chinese at sight, the change in form being so slight. ... The remarkable feature that stood out during the course of my examination was that the resemblance between the characters you discovered in the solid Nevada rocks is actually closer to the ancient characters found and preserved in China than that between the latter and the characters now in current use in that country.
As to your discovery I regard it as one of the greatest contributions to philology the world has ever known. Hitherto Chinese archaeologists have struggled with ancient characters found within the bounds of their own land. They have done their work well, but apparently it has never occurred to them to look for material in foreign lands, especially in the far away land of America.
As a humble student of the Chinese written language in the ancient as well as the modern form, for upwards of a quarter of a century, I shall be glad, when you have finished photographing the thousands of characters, resuscitated as it were by you, after they had been embedded in solid rock for tens upon tens of thousands of years, I shall be glad to devote my leisure moments to identifying them with the characters used by the Chinese in the modern form, and translating them as my little mite toward the study of philology and the history of the world.
In confirmation of the above there is an authentic account of the discovery of the remains of a "Chinese junk" in the placer gravels of the Sacramento Valley in California, by the early miners, during the gold rush of 1849.
A MONGOL INVASION OF AMERICA
IN Grapevine Canyon in southern Nevada, some 28 miles north of Needles, Calif., there is a remarkable cliff covered with ancient petroglyphs, usually termed wall-writings. These ancient characters were examined by a well known Professor of Geology in one of our California universities, and the following is an outline of his conclusions.
Outline of Conclusions
"1. The shallow hieroglyphics were made by human hands. Some of the characters strongly suggest ancient Chinese.
2. They were carved after the general topographic features of the district had been formed, and after the rock outcrops had been coated with iron-manganese oxides, but while that coating was still in process of formation.
3. The carvings were made at intervals over a long space of time.
4. Rock surface subjected to decay.
5. The rock face was then partly buried by stream-deposited gravel to a depth of 22 feet.
6. Later gravel deposit was slightly cemented and pebbles in it notably decayed.
7. Later intrenched to depth of 22 feet.
8. No water has run down trench for more than 40 years and perhaps 150 years.
9. Evidence of two distinct but minor climatic changes since petroglyphs were made.
10. Carvings many centuries old—and probably thousands of years old.
11. They are not older than the last interglacial epoch of the Pleistocene Period.
12. Closer determination requires study of much larger region.
13. The petroglyphs seem to merit a thorough investigation by expert archaeologists and comparative philologists."
At first thought the presence of ancient Chinese characters in Nevada would seem to indicate that our American Indians emigrated from Asia by way of Bering's Strait. In my opinion this is not so. I firmly believe that there was a Mongolian invasion of America, and probably more than one in the prehistoric Past, and that these invasions were bitterly resented by the American Indians, who were in possession of the soil. The outcome of this has been centuries of warfare, which is being carried on to this day.
I came to these conclusions, after spending three winters in Alaska, where for one year I lived among the Esquimaux on the Kuskokwim River. I learned to converse with them, I heard many of their traditions, and became well acquainted with a very learned Jesuit priest who was compiling a dictionary of the Esquimaux language. During this time I learned some interesting facts and came to some very definite conclusions.
1st. The Esquimaux are distinctly Mongols. They strongly suggest the Chinese. In my opinion they are a different race from the Indians.
2nd. The Esquimaux are a homogeneous people from Bering's Sea to Baffin's Bay. They inhabit 10,000 miles of the most inhospitable seacoast in the world. They speak the same language, use the same weapons, build the same boats and houses and yet the Esquimaux of Bering's Sea know absolutely nothing of those other Esquimaux inhabiting the Eastern Coast of America.
3rd. The Esquimaux of today live in a state of continual warfare with the American Indians. No Esquimau dares to go inland beyond certain boundaries. The Indians have driven them to the seacoast and are holding them there. The Russians arranged a truce between the Esquimaux and the Indians, during two weeks in August of each year for purposes of trade. After that the warfare begins again.
4th. They never inter-marry. The Indians hold the Esquimaux in utter contempt. If there was any blood relationship between the two races this would not happen.
My Jesuit friend and I discussed this question at length and came to this conclusion. That the Esquimaux are the remnant of a great Mongol invasion of America. That they probably came to America prior to the Ice Age. During the Miocene Period the Coast Range of California was emerging from the sea and formed a screen of protecting islands, similar to the coast line of British Columbia today. The Willamette Valley connected through to Puget Sound on the north and to the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys on the south in a vast system of protected inland waterways. Being such expert boatmen it is easy to see how they made the journey from Asia. They drifted across to the open plains of Nevada, where they found a country and climate similar to their Mongolian homeland, and left their inscriptions on the cliffs and in the caves. Attracted by the great buffalo herd, they made their way eastward and there they came in contact with the men from the South. Perhaps with the trained soldiers of the Mayas. They were driven northward until they came to the edge of the Ice-cap and there they made a stand. We concluded that this was some where near where St. Paul now is.
During thousands of years the pressure was maintained, and as the Ice retreated they were forced to follow it. Thus one branch made its way down the St. Lawrence River and came to Labrador. Another tribe went down the James River and came to Hudson's Bay. Others went down the Mackenzie to the Arctic, and still others went down the Yukon to Bering's Sea. As they could not come inland they were forced to make their living from the sea and gradually developed into the Esquimaux as we know them today. I am convinced if the American Indians were of Asiatic stock they would have amalgamated with the Esquimaux ages ago. That they have not done so satisfies me that they are a distinct and different race.
CHINESE WALL-WRITINGS IN NEVADA
These ancient Chinese characters were discovered by Capt. Alan Le Baron cut into the wall of a cave in the State of Nevada. Capt. Le Baron's investigations are based on the theory that the high plateau forming most of Nevada and parts of Utah and Arizona is the oldest land on earth. There are geologic maps which show that this area has not been submerged under the sea for more than 40 million years. It is therefore argued that it is the logical place to seek for the origin of man.
Recognizing these inscriptions as strongly suggesting Chinese characters, Capt. Le Baron took the matter up with Mr. John Endicott Gardner, a student of Oriental languages, and interpreter of Chinese for the courts in Berkeley. Dr. Gardner was much stirred by the discovery and wrote to Capt. Le Baron as follows:
Chinese Characters from a Cave in Nevada
Compared with Ancient and Modern Writing
DEAR CAPTAIN:
I have just completed the very pleasant task of examining the photographic copies of the characters engraven on the rocks in the dim ages of the past, and now discovered by you in the State of Nevada, with the view of determining whether or not said characters could be identified with the ancient symbols forming the written medium of the Chinese people. As the result of such examination I do not hesitate to give the answer in the affirmative.
Considering the long interval between the two, the resemblance between them is astonishingly close. In fact some of your specimen characters were recognized by me as ancient Chinese at sight, the change in form being so slight. ... The remarkable feature that stood out during the course of my examination was that the resemblance between the characters you discovered in the solid Nevada rocks is actually closer to the ancient characters found and preserved in China than that between the latter and the characters now in current use in that country.
As to your discovery I regard it as one of the greatest contributions to philology the world has ever known. Hitherto Chinese archaeologists have struggled with ancient characters found within the bounds of their own land. They have done their work well, but apparently it has never occurred to them to look for material in foreign lands, especially in the far away land of America.
As a humble student of the Chinese written language in the ancient as well as the modern form, for upwards of a quarter of a century, I shall be glad, when you have finished photographing the thousands of characters, resuscitated as it were by you, after they had been embedded in solid rock for tens upon tens of thousands of years, I shall be glad to devote my leisure moments to identifying them with the characters used by the Chinese in the modern form, and translating them as my little mite toward the study of philology and the history of the world.
I am cordially yours,
JOHN ENDICOTT GARDNER
In confirmation of the above there is an authentic account of the discovery of the remains of a "Chinese junk" in the placer gravels of the Sacramento Valley in California, by the early miners, during the gold rush of 1849.