672 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



A SUPPOSED SPECIMEi^ OF ABOEiaiNAL AET, 



Discovered at Gondola Point, parisli of Rothesay, in Kings County, New Brunswick, 

 and exhibited at the Provincial Exhibition held at the Mechanics' Institute, St. 

 John, New Brunswick. (Autumn of A. D. 1851?) 



By G. F. Matthew. 



Living in the reigliborhoocl of the spot where this object was found, 

 I undertook, at the request of J. Allen Jack, esq., to make inquiry into 

 the circumstances connected with its discoveiy. It had been found, 

 I was told, on the farm of Andrew Kilpatrick (now owned by David 

 Kilpatrick), about half a mile from the Ei^iscopal church, near Gondola 

 Point. It was turned out from a depth of between three aud four feet 

 below the surface of the ground in digging a cellar on the farm referred 

 to ; and was intrusted to Mr. Harding to take to St. John and ex- 

 hibit at the provincial exhibition held at the Mechanics' Institute (in the 

 year 1851 ?) 

 In general outline the object, which is a rough-looking stone, is of an 



oval form, 2 feet 

 llf inches long, 1 

 foot 3^ inches 

 broad, and 1 foot 

 2§ inches deep; 

 and as regards 

 most of its surface 

 does not differ from 

 an ordinary bowl- 

 der of Lower Carboniferous conglomerate, numbers of which lie scat- 

 tered around the neighboring fields. This conglomerate consists chiefly 

 of pieces of granite, aud protogene in association with less numerous, 

 but characteristic fragments of crystalline limestone of the upi^er series 

 of the Laureutian area, the border of which lies about a mile to the 

 southward of the point where the bowlder was found. I am satisfied, 

 therefore, that the bowlder was not brought from a distance, but belongs 

 in the neighborhood where it was dug u]). 



While, as regards most of its surface, this stone does not differ from 

 an' ordinary bowlder, there is an exception in the apiiearance of one end. 

 This has been carved into the form of a human head, looking out, as it 

 were, from the end of the stone. The features are aquiline, rudely carved, 

 and somewhat irregular, as though chiseled by an unskilled hand. They 

 j)resent the appearance of having been worked out upon the surface of 

 the stone by using certain hard protuberances as the basis for the more 

 X:»rominent features and graving the rest to correspond. The artist has 

 apijarently seized upon a rude semblance of the human face presented, 

 and worked out the finer lineaments to correspond. 



