2 proceedings of the academy of [1899 



January 10 



Mr. Artpiur Erwin Brown iu the Chair. 



Thirty-two ])ersons present. 



A pa]3er entitled " New and Interesting Species in the Isaac Lea 

 Collection of Eocene Mollusca, " by Charles W. Johnson, was 

 presented for publication. 



The deaths of Francis M. Brooke and Mrs, Bloomfield H. 

 Moore, members, were announced. 



The Calaveras Skull. — Mr. William H. Dall called attention 

 to the fact that the authenticity of the celebrated Calaveras skull, 

 about which so, much controversy had arisen in 1866, has recently 

 again been called in question. It seemed to him, as the small 

 number of persons who were cognizant of the facts when they 

 occurred is already greatly reduced, that it would be desirable to 

 put on record his own testimony as an eyewitness to some of them, 

 which in his opinion are incompatible with the theory that a hoax 

 had been perpetrated, or a skull from some recent burial place 

 subject to the lime deposit from springs, fraudulently foisted upon 

 Prof. J. D. Whitney and his associates in the State Geological 

 Survey. ^ 



Mr. Dall described briefly the nature of the formations which 

 make up the table mountains of the region alluded to, consisting 

 of beds of basaltic lava more or less alternated Avith gravel, which 

 lill the prehistoric stream beds in which gold was sought by means 

 of tunnels from the side, or shafts from above, and which are now 

 practically abandoned since the returns do not pay for the labor. 



He Avas in California at the time of the discovery and in June, 

 1866, examined the sku'd, then in the office of the State Geolo- 

 gist, in the presence of Prof. Whitney, William M. Gabb, W. 



^ The main facts as thoroughly investigated at the time are given by 

 Prof. "Whitney in his work on the auriferous gravels of California, Memoirs 

 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Vol. vi, Part 1, 

 pp. 267-273, 1879. The evidence has generally been regarded among 

 scientific men as convincing and sufficient, the skull being shown l)y analy- 

 sis to be in a fossilized condition, and to have been taken, according to his 

 own statement, by a mine owner of respectability, from a bed of giavel 133 

 feet below the siirl'ace of the uppermost lava bed of Bald Hill, one of the 

 ■'table mountains" of Calaveras County, Cal., and to have been so covered 

 with cemented gravel that it was not recognized as a skull until the party 

 to whom the original finder had given it in his presence, removed some of 

 the covering, and that it passed without fee or reward into the bancs of 

 the State Geologist, who with his colleagues immediately investigated all 

 the circumstances. 



