92 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



a little point off which lie the two smooth ledges called the Butter balls, and a little 

 farther north is Gray's Point, a very choice camp ground. Between the two, but 

 nearer the former, is a stony cove, from the extreme head whereof it is some 25 to 

 30 yards straight away from the Lake, through the woods, to a nearly vertical 

 rough ledge, rising several times higher than a man, of red granite much jointed 

 and breaking to many angular fragments. This ledge is a part of precipices which 

 towards the right, rise abruptly, often vertical and sometimes overhanging, to the 

 face of Porcupine Mountain, an abrupt prominent hill, nearly vertical towards 

 the Lake. Turning to the left, the ledge becomes lower and smoother, and finally 

 just before it merges to a wooded slope, is solid and vertical, and somewhere against 

 this face the stone was resting when found. The place has been altered, however, 

 a good deal, Captain Milliken says, by the falling of additional material from above, 

 the ground being covered by a jumble of moss-covered angular masses of granite. 

 The moss is not the slow-growing, or Lichen kind, but the much quicker-growing 

 woods kind. 



Genuineness 



The foregoing accounts contain discrepancies, but no more than 

 the defective observation, freakish memory, and feeble sense of evi- 

 dence of most men render inevitable. These apart, the collective 

 testimony seems conclusive that the medallion is a genuine relic, 

 actually discovered by Laney at Lake Utopia in 1863. This deduction 

 from the records is confirmed by the time-worn aspect which the stone 

 has presented from its discovery. 



The alternative is of course a fraudulent fabrication, with a 

 motive in practical joking, or profit. As the citations show, this view 

 has been advanced, but only as a guess and never with evidence. 

 On the other hand it is notable that not only have all those who 

 possessed direct knowledge of the discovery of the stone seemed fully 

 convinced of its genuineness, but no suspicion of fraud or mendacity 

 of their part has remained in the minds of others; and this is no small 

 argument in view of the critical attention given the stone, and the 

 habit of men in small communities to constitute themselves vigilant 

 keepers of their neighbours' reputations for veracity. 



As to Laney as a possible practical joker, Mr. McGowan and 

 Mr. Vroom agree that he had not the capacity, and was not of a 

 character, to work such a scheme. As to the motive of profit, the 

 smallness of the sum for which he sold the stone in comparison with 

 the labour required to produce it, and likewise the circumstances 

 of its transfer to Colonel Wetmore, seem to negative such an assump- 

 tion. As L Allen Jack said, anyone producing such an object, whether 

 as a joke or for sale, could attain his object with a stone far easier 

 to work than this obdurate granite. If the circumstance seems sus- 

 picious that Laney was a stone mason, it is to be recalled that his 



