272 THE AURIFEROUS GRAVELS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 
time, and that he would give notice whenever he did so, and that a full opportunity should be 
afforded of making a careful inspection of the vicinity. 
The appearance of the skull when it came into the writer's hands, and especially its appearance 
when obtained by Mr. Scribner, whose statements may be considered as beyond suspicion, shows 
that this is not an ordinary skull picked up at random in order that it might be palmed off as a 
curiosity on an unsuspecting “ Eastern geologist,” or even an “anti-Scriptural miner.” The skull 
was unquestionably dug up somewhere, and had unquestionably been subjected to quite a series of 
peculiar conditions. In the first place it had been broken, and broken in such a manner as to 
indicate great violence, as the fractures go through the thickest and heaviest parts of the skull ; 
again, the evidence of violent and protracted motion, as seen in the manner in which the various 
bones were wedged into the hollow and internal parts of the skull, as, for instance, the bones of 
the foot under the malar bone. The appearance of the skull was something such as would be 
expected to result from its having been swept, with many other bones, from the place where it was 
originally deposited down the shallow but violent current of a stream, where it would be exposed to 
violent blows against the boulders lying in its bed. During this passage it was smashed, and frag- 
ments of the bones occurring with it were thrust into all the cavities where they could lodge. It 
then came to rest somewhere, in a position where water charged with lime salts had access to it, 
and on a bed of auriferous gravel. While it lay there the mass on which it rested was cemented 
to it by the calcareous matter deposited around the skull, and thus the base of hard mixed tufa 
and pebbles which was attached to it when it was placed in the writer’s hands was formed. At 
this time, too, the snail crept in under the malar bone, and there died. Subsequently to this the 
whole was enveloped by a deposit of gravel, which did not afterwards become thoroughly consoli- 
dated, and which, therefore, was easily removed by the gentlemen who first cleaned up the speci- 
men in question, they only removing the looser gravel which surrounded it. 
Now, such is the condition of things and the chain of events through which the skull passed, 
as vouched for by its own appearance when it left Dr. Jones’s hands, and by the perfectly reli- 
able statements of Messrs. Jones and Scribner. 
How does this compare with Mr. Mattison’s statements as to the position of the skull? And this 
is a question of great importance, as, if this gentleman told one story and the skull another, we 
should not doubt which authority to accept. If, on the other hand, there is no discrepancy in the 
evidence thus furnished by the dead and the living, then we have here a very strong corroborative 
link in the chain of testimony, going to show the genuineness of the find. 
Mr. Mattison told me that he with his own hands took the skull from near the bottom of bed 
No. 8, in the section given on page 269, and that it was found lying on the side of the chan- 
nel with a mass of drift-wood, as if it had been deposited there by an eddy of the stream, and 
afterwards covered over in the deposit of gravel by which bed No. 8 was formed. Now here seems 
to be a very satisfactory coincidence between the statements of Mr. Mattison and the facts revealed 
by the condition of the skull itself. Indeed, the coincidence is as complete as could be desired, 
and in view of these facts it seems very difficult not to accept the statements made by the gentle- 
man in question as authentic. 
We have the independent testimony of three witnesses, two of whom were previously known to 
the writer as men of intelligence and veracity, while in regard to the third there is no reason for 
doubting his truthfulness. Each one of these gentlemen testifies to some points in the chain of 
circumstantial evidence going to prove the genuineness of the find. No motive for deception on 
the part of Mr. Mattison can be discovered, while the appearance of the skull itself bears strong, 
though silent, testimony to the correctness of his story. 
The following is Dr. Wyman’s notice of the craniological peculiarities of the Calaveras skull : — 
“The volume of the frontal region is large, so that if the skull were viewed from above, the zygo- 
matic arches would be nearly concealed. As a large part of the occiput is destroyed, it is uncertain 
whether the head was long or broad. The face is somewhat deformed, the left orbit being smaller, 
and the left cheek higher than the right, thus giving the whole an unsymmetrical appearance. The 
