102 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



and critical judgment in such matters I have already mentioned, 

 heard stories of it "twenty or thirty years" before 1892, but has no 

 belief in its existence. So interesting and striking an object could 

 hardly have failed to attract the notice and investigation of Mr. 

 Ward and Colonel Wetmore at the time they were so interested in 

 the finding of the medallion had the report then been current with 

 any plausible foundation. Thus a fact basis for belief in such a 

 structure is wanting, and it is wholly probable that the story originated 

 simply in speculations centering around the existence of such regu- 

 larly jointed columns and slabs as occur so frequently in that vicinity, 

 and of which the Cleopatra's Needle of Mr. Russell's description 

 and picture was one example. 



Fraiidulent Head. In the St. John Daily Telegraph of July 5, 

 1913 (and later, I am told, in Gun and Rod in Canada), appeared an 

 account, illustrated with a photograph, of a stone head, roughly 

 carved in the round, said to have been recently discovered at Lake 

 Utopia only a few hundred feet from the place where the medallion 

 had been found. Naturally much interested, I suggested to Mr. 

 Vroom that he go to St. George and investigate the find, but being 

 much occupied, he wrote instead to Captain Charles Johnson, of 

 St. George, a leading citizen and interested observer of all local 

 matters, and manager of one of the granite companies at that place. 

 Mr. Vroom sent me his reply, of which the substance follows: — - 



The head is a fraud. Some apprentice boys cut it about twenty years ago. 

 It has been in the camp for years to prop the door back. Last year an enterprising 

 newspaper man was looking for notes, so some of the boys dumped it into the lake, 



and found it, and stuflfed him I must admit I helped the thing along. . . . 



Fooling a newspaper man and an old friend like you are entirely two different things, 

 so I hasten to set it straight. 



The critical reader's first thought may be that the incident of 

 this false head throws doubt on the genuineness of the medallion. I 

 predict, however, that further consideration of the entire matter 

 in light of the laws of logic and evidence will lead to the other 

 conclusion. 



