[ganong] stone medallion OF LAKE UTOPL\ 87 



was lying on the surface and covered with moss, and that it was not until the re- 

 moval of the moss that the true character of the object appeared. An examination 

 of its surface must, I think, convince the observer that the stone has been subjected 

 to the long-continued action of water, and from its situation it seems fairly certain 

 that the water which has produced the wasted appearance was rain, and rain only 



I may refer, but solely for the purpose of expressing my disbelief 



in any such hypothesis, to the suggestion that art, employed for the purpose of 

 deceiving, and not any force of nature, has produced the worn appearance to which 

 reference has been made. The mossy deposit, and the unfrequented locality in 



which the curiosity was found, both aid in dispelling this idea I may 



further urge that, had the object of the workman been solely to deceive, he would 

 have scarcely selected a stone whereon to carve of a granite character, and especially 

 a piece of granulite, one of the hardest of rocks to work, being not only hard in 

 quality but of crystalline structure. 



As to the crucial problem of the origin and meaning of the 

 medallion, Mr. Jack concludes as follows: 



No relic of a similar character to this had been dug up at any Indian 



burial ground in New Brunswick, and although our Indians produce very well 

 executed full relief figures of the beaver, the muskrat, and the otter, upon soap- 

 stone pipes, their skill apparently goes no further in this direction I 



think that a careful or even superficial examination of the carving must impress 

 the observer with the idea that it is intended to represent the face of an Indian, 

 and the head, although viewed only laterally, certainly presents many of the pecu- 

 liarities of the North American type By no hypothesis, however, am 



I able to connect this curiosity with any European custom or idea, and consequently 

 the remainder of my investigation will be devoted to the argument in favor of its 

 Indian origin 



Mr. Jack's argument, elaborated at length, leads to the con- 

 clusion that the stone probably represents a monument placed by the 

 Indians at the grave of a chief. 



In that most excellent book on the natural history of New 

 Brunswick, Field and Forest Rambles, published in 1873 by Dr. A. 

 Leith Adams, a trained scientific observer some years resident in the 

 Province, there occurs (at page 34) an account of the stone, with a 

 crude cut, wherefrom we extract the following sentences: 



It is cut on a slab of red granite, and was discovered in a perfectly accidental 

 manner lying among blocks of the same rock on the banks of the beautiful lake of 



Utopia, at the southern corner of the Province I spent several days 



in the locality searching for further relics, and more especially the remains of a 

 temple building said to have existed at one time on a blufï over-looking the lake, 



of which, however, not a trace was observable The skill displayed 



on the medallion clearly indicated a high knowledge of art, never attained by the 

 forefathers of the present Indians; moreover, if it be not the work of a preceding 

 race, it might be one of the trials of skill of some clever Jesuit father in the early 

 days of colonization! Indeed when a drawing of this sculpture was displayed at 

 the Boston Natural History Society, some members pronounced it a very modern 

 imposition, and asserted it to be a likeness of the great Washington! I took pains, 



