24 SANTA BARBAKA SOCIETY OP NATURAL HISTORY. 



at Altaville, near Angels, in Calaveras county, by Mr. James 

 Matson; by him it was given to Mr. Scribner of Angels, and 

 by Mr. Scribner to Dr. Jones. Mr. Matson states that the 

 skull was found at a depth of about one hundred and thirty 

 feet, in a bed of gravel five feet in thickness, above which are 

 four beds of consolidated volcanic ash, locally known as lava; 

 these volcanic beds are separated from each other by layers 

 of gravel. ***** 



The skull was found, according to Mr. Matson, in bed number 

 8, just above the lowest stratum of lava. With the skull were 

 found fragments of silicified wood, the whole being covered 

 and partly incrusted with stony matter, so that the fact of its 

 being a skull was not recognized until after it had passed into 

 Mr. Scribner's hands, by whom it was cleaned and presented 

 to Dr. Jones. The skull was taken from the shaft February 

 25th, 1866, and it came into my hands in the July following, 

 when I immediately proceeded to the locality, but found the 

 shaft temporarily abandoned, and partly filled with water, so 

 that it was impossible at that time to make any further search 

 in the bed from which the skull was procured. A careful 

 inquiry into all the circumstances of the alleged discovery 

 and an interview with all the persons who had been in any 

 way connected with it, impressed upon my mind the con- 

 viction that the facts were as stated above, and that there was 

 every reason to believe that the skull really came from the 

 position assigned to it by Mr. Matson. Still, as it is evidently 

 highly desirable that as large an amount of evidence as 

 possible should be accumulated in regard to a discovery of so 

 much importance, I made arrangements that I should be 

 notified whenever the shaft was reopened and the water taken 

 out, and hope at a future meeting to be able to lay before the 

 Academy the results of a personal examination of this inter- 

 esting locality and of the further excavations in the bed from 

 which the skull was taken. Assuming the correctness of 'Mr. 

 Matson's statements, this relic of human antiquity is easily 

 seen to be an object of the greatest interest to the ethnologist 

 as well as the geologist. The previous investigations of the 



