104 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



It is to the lasting credit of this miner that the specimen was care- 

 fully taken out, saved, brought to the attention of his superiors, and 

 reached the right hands. These hands, at the advice of the manager 

 of the mine, were those of the company physician. Dr. A. F. Wallace, 

 and he safeguarded the specimen for three weeks in his office. It was 

 then taken in charge by the manager, Mr. Macartney, to be later in 

 the year personally transported by Mr. Macartney to the British 

 Museum. There was much more to the story than here expressed, 

 and some of the details were stated differently by different persons, 

 but the above appear to be the simple essentials. 



After learning the generalities and being shown over the mine by 

 Mr. Rudyerd, the writer endeavored to reach personally every man 

 concerned with the find or on the spot at that time, who might still 

 be found at Broken Hill or reached through the mails, in order to 

 obtain from each one independently as detailed and circumstantial 

 information about the discovery as it might still be possible to get. 

 As only four years had elapsed since the time of the find, it was 

 hoped that a number of the men who were concerned with it would 

 still be found on the spot and that their memories of the find would 

 still be quite clear and reliable. 



As good fortune would have it, before the writer's departure from 

 Broken Hill he was able to locate and interview five of the men con- 

 cerned from the beginning in the discovery, including Mr. Zwigelaar 

 who actually found the skull ; and a sixth one was reached later by 

 a letter. Each of these men was most willing to tell all he knew ; but 

 their memories regrettably were no longer clear as to the particu- 

 lars. However, what was obtained is not without importance. 



The most noteworthy information is that of the discoverer of the 

 specimen, Mr. Zwigelaar. He was found to be a serious middle-aged 

 man, not highly educated but of good common sense, and he tried 

 hard to give the main facts of the find as he remembered them. The 

 gist of his statements, repeated and reasserted, follows : 



It was about 10 a. m. one day. We were working back from the incline at its 

 lower part. I had a colored boy (young man) with me and we were " hand pick- 

 ing " in a pocket where there was much lead ore. The digging was not hard, not 

 like stone, more loose. After one of the strokes of the pick some of the stuff 

 fell off, and there was the skull looking at me. It was very strange and with 

 some of the matter adhering to it looked so unlike an ordinary human skull 

 that I thought it was a big gorilla. I took it out carefully, showed it to the 

 officials of the mine and others, and later that day brought it in to Mr. Macartney 

 who in turn sent it to Dr. Wallace. Soon after the find was made Mr. Macartney 



