142 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



of the same type have been found associated 

 with mastodon teeth. Whether, however, the 

 maker of the houcher was contemporaneous 

 with the mastodon, as I am inclined to be- 

 lieve, or the mastodon tooth washed into the 

 gravel deposit from an earlier bed, may be 

 regarded as an open question. 



The probabilities seem to be that while 

 the mastodon was still alive in South Africa 

 we had large numbers of some pre-Bushman 

 race whose only remains hitherto known have 

 been the thousands of houchers, sometimes 

 of huge size, scattered over most of the 

 country. The Boskop man is probably a 

 member of this race, and perhaps of the 

 same race as made the Acheulean implements 

 so well known in Europe. 



Ever yours sincerely, 



[Signed] E. BROOir. 



The significance of the (indirect) asso- 

 ciation of the Boskop skull with the masto- 

 don may not be ajiparent to American read- 

 ers. In this country the mastodon is best 



known from the Pleistocene, the age of man, 

 and survived to recent time, after the last 

 of the great ice sheets had disappeared. 

 Man contemporary with mastodon would not 

 here imply any great antiquity, geologically 

 speaking. 



In the Old World, however, the mastodons 

 all disappeared much earlier, and the latest 

 of the Old World mastodons, unless these 

 Kimberley specimens be an exception, are 

 found in the Upper Pliocene epoch, older 

 than any fossil human remains yet discov- 

 ered. 



If therefore the Boskop skull was Teally 

 contemporaneous with mastodons in South 

 Africa, it means either that the mastodon 

 survived much later there than in Europe or 

 Asia, or that the skull, typically human 

 though it be, is of Pliocene age. In view of 

 so important a possible conclusion, the 

 guarded terms in which Dr. Broom describes 

 the circumstances and character of the find 

 should be very carefully studied. 



W. D. M. 



The Great Jade Mass from Jordansmiihl 



Tlic hi tycsf piece of jade erey found in situ and fJie hn-ijisl erer ixdislad, 



)ii((isin-iii(/ seven feet ton;/ tji/ tn'o and one half n'idi . and 



a-ti(/hin(/ 4718 jionnds {^140 hilo(/rains) 



THE great mass of jade (nephrite), 

 whose polished green surface now 

 gives a note of color to the somber 

 circle of meteorites in Memorial Hall at the 

 American Museum of Natural History, is 

 unique among the mineral collections of this 

 or other museums, intrinsically and because 

 of its bearing on a disputed ethnological 

 question. The mass, which weighs between 

 two and three tons, presents the most ex- 

 tensive surface of jade that has ever been 

 polished, and is the largest piece of jade 

 ever found in situ, though its weight is not 

 as great as that of a waterworn specimen 

 from New Zealand, weighing three and one 

 half tons, on exhibition in the South Sea 

 Islands hall of the Museum. 



While preparing the catalogue of the 

 large collection of jade and jadeite of the 

 late Heber E. Bishoj), the writer noted that 

 it contained no specimen with the matrix 

 attached; further inquiry revealed that the 



same was true of the collections of all Euro- 

 pean and American museums. When abroad 

 in 1899 to obtain such a specimen, I visited 

 Jordansmiihl, southwest of Breslau in Si- 

 lesia, where small specimens of jade had 

 been found by Dr. Traube in 1884. Through 

 the courtesy of Dr. C. F. Hintze, professor 

 of mineralogy in the University of Breslau, 

 I was enabled to locate the quarry of Jor- 

 dansmiihl, get the permission of the owner 

 to visit it, and use to the best advantage the 

 single day at my disposal for the search. 



Although Dr. Hintze was skeptical about 

 the possibility of securing a large specimen 

 in so short a time, an examination of the 

 quarry at once gave evidences of nephrite. 

 In a bowl-shaped hill of serpentine, about 

 seventy-five feet high and two thousand feet 

 long, several protuberances were noted. 

 Most of these were weisstein, but one, green- 

 ish in color, proved upon investigation to 

 be nephrite, or jade. The dimensions of 



