462 AUKIFEEOUS GRAVEL MAN IN CALIFORNIA. 



ancient remains, be, witli a pious imprecation on the head of the other 

 feUow and his impudence, gave it a toss into the ])ack yard. There 

 the bonv thing, which had long resisted the tooth of tinal destruction, 

 was again exposed to a more quickening action of hurtful elements. 

 There in the damp of rain and mildew it remained for many months 

 unnoticed. There it is quite likely — indeed, probable — that the little 

 Helix iiiormonum^ w^hich can be seen photographed at the left-hand 

 base of the figure (PI. XV, «), became attached. 



"At length Mr. Matson, in one of his occasional visits to Murphys, 

 saw, like a familiar ghost, his old acquaintance, the same old head. 

 He inquired of Dr. Jones where he got it, not knowing what disposi- 

 tion Mr. Scribner and company had made of it. Learning for the tirst 

 time that several months anterior thereto Matson had dug the head out 

 of his own shaft 1jJ8 feet below the surface of the ground, the Doctor 

 then suspected it might turn out something of interest. These 

 unlooked-for facts at once invested the dirty topknot with new and 

 even profound considerations. It was soon photographed ■ by Mr. 

 Alonzo Rhodes, of Mui-phys, and the negative was sent to Mr. Shew, 

 at San Francisco, where pictures were printed. The attention of Pro- 

 fessor Whitney was now called to the I'csurrected head. He, in com- 

 pany with Mr. Matson. the mincM', visited the now old and abandoned 

 miners' shaft. They found it parth' tilled with water and dirt, which 

 was soon pumped dr}'. Mr. Matson ])ointed out on the wall of the 

 bank the precise spot the interesting object la}" in conjunction 

 with fragments of wood. The wood he thought was a fragment 

 from quite a large tree. From this spot Whitney told Mr. Scribner 

 he gathered gravel and carefully comi)ared it with that scrai)ed from 

 the skull. ^ They proved i(lentical one with the other. It se;>med the 

 gravels in the different layers al)ove were of other kinds. This fact pre- 

 cludes the possibility of designing person or persons securing the object 

 from "Salt Spring Valley' (as opposers have asserted), and dropping it 

 down the shaft. 1 incpiired of Mr. Matson how it came to be nunored 

 that the skull was taken from 'mud spring in Salt Spring Valley' and 

 thence conveyed to his mining shafts He answered, 'Before I began 

 mining at that place and several years back into the decade of 1850, a 

 Mrs. Hotfman had gathered several skulls from Salt Spring Valley, a 

 place some 12 miles distant from Angels, and had them on exhibition 

 in a sort of cabinet collection.' One of these heads had l)een fractured 

 and crushed on the left parietal bone, the line of fracture running to 

 the temple. Some similitude or relationship between these and the 

 Calaveras head was believed to exist. But how or in what manner 

 nobod}' could tell, for none knew, 



" It may be proper here to say that Mr. Matson is a plain, hard- 

 working day laborer, a blacksmith by calling. He seems to be a very 

 honest-appearing man. He evidences no disposition to magnify, fal- 

 sify, or to depart from the correct line of truth. Here ends all there 

 is or, as far as 1 can learn, ever was, about the so-called ' joke' over the 

 Calaveras skull, except its occasional rehearsal and the more important 

 fact that it was a joke by Matthews on Dr. Jones and not on Professor 

 W^hitney. 



"As mentioned above, the animus of it was not to play upon the 

 spirit of scientiiic inquiry nor to deride native anthropological stud}^, 



^Compare with "Auriferous gravels," p. 271, 



