194 G. F. BECKER — ANTIQUITIES FROM TABLE MOUNTAIN. 



forced out of its place with considerable difficulty on account of the hardness 

 of the gravel in which it was tightly wedged. It left behind a perfect cast of 

 its shape in the matrix, and proved to be a part of a polished stone imple- 

 ment, no doubt a pestle. It seems to be made of a fine-grained diabase. 

 This implement was presented to the Smithsonian Institution on January 20, 

 1870. It is shown in the accompanying cut (figure 1), a photo-engraviug 

 from a drawing by Mr. W. H. Holmes. Mr. King is perfectly sure that 

 this implement was in place, and that it formed an original part of the 

 gravels in which he found it.* It is difficult to imagine more satisfactory 

 evidence than this of the occurrence of implements in the auriferous, pre- 

 glacial, sub-basaltic gravels.^ 



The Calaveras Skull. — As is well known, there is also evidence indicating 

 the existence of human remains in the gravel beds, particularly that afforded 

 by the famous Calaveras skull. This strange relic I shall not fully discuss on 

 this occasion, but a few words concerning it will not be out of place. No 

 one has doubted that Mr. Mattison found the skull in the auriferous gravels 

 beneath the lava, 130 feet from the surface, and that he honestly supposed it 

 to be in place ; but it has been asserted that it was purposely concealed 

 there by others. Now the chemical analysis of the bone shows that it is a 

 fossil. It contains only a trace of organic matter, over 62 per cent, of calcium 

 carbonate, and only about 34 per cent, of calcium phosphate. A rhinoceros 

 jaw from the same horizon contained more than two and a half times as 

 much phosphate as carbonate, and was thus much less completely fossilized 

 than the human bone. Truly fossilized human bones are very great rarities, 

 and to suppose that the miners were not only successful in " salting " the 

 mine with human bones, but that they procured truly fossil bones to do it 

 with, requires a painful stretch of the imagination. But, further, when the 

 skull was found a mass of gravel indistinguishable from the surrounding 

 material adhered firmly to it and remained thus attached until, long after- 

 wards, Dr. Jeffi:"ies Wyman removed it in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hence 

 the miners must have found it, if at all, in a formation similar to or identi- 

 cal with the auriferous gravels. The supposed joke would therefore be quite 

 without point. 



It has also been suggested that the skull may have fallen from the surface 

 through some crack in the rock at a time sufficiently remote to allow the 

 fossilization and the induration of the surrounding mass to take place. There 

 is no direct evidence in favor of this hypothesis, and it is highly improbable 

 that an open cleft 130 feet deep could be formed by natural causes in a mass 

 of gravel capped by only. 40 feet of lava. The fact that part of the tibia 

 of another human being, too small to have owned the skull, was found in 

 the mass adhering to the larger bone makes the suggestion more difficult of 



• I have submitted this statement of hi? discovery to Mr. King, who pronounces it correct. 



