The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-17 00:00:00

OLD AMERICA.

DISCOVERY OF A HUMAN SKULL IN CALIFORNIA 200
FEET BENEATH ROCK.
The summer meeting of the American National
Academy was held in Massachusetts during the last
week in August, and the following is the list of
papers offered to be read during the present sitting:
—Topography and Topographical Work, west of
the 103 d Meridian ; by Professor J. D. Whitney,
of San Francisco, California. Deep Sea Dredg-
ing in the Gulf Stream ; by L. L. Poarteles. A
New and General Method of Developing the
Real Roofs of an Equation ; by Theodore Strong.
Tides and Tidal Currents in an Estuary or a Canal
between two Tidal Basins ; by Professor Peirce of
Cambridge. Chemical Investigations of Petroleum
and Theories of its Origin ; by P. F. Peckham, pre-
sented by Professor J. D. Whitney. The Distribu-
tion of Forest Vegetation west of the Rocky Moun-
tains ; by W. H. Brown. Subdivisions of the Cre-
taceous and Marine Tertiary formation in Califor-
nia; by W. M. Gabb. Notes on the Origin of
Bitumens, together with experiments on the forma-
tion of Asphaltum ;byW. M. Gabb. Remarks on
Mr. Airy's reduction of Kirchhoff's scale ; by Pro-
fessor Wolcott Gibbs. On the Constitution of
Uric Acid, and its derivations ; by the same. New
Methods of Analytical Chemis try ; by the same.
On the Reputed Occurrence of human bones at An-
telope station on the Union Pa cific Railroad ; by
J. C. Marsh.
Professor J. D. Whitney read a.paper of great
interest " On the Discovery of the Human' Skull in
Calavera3 County, California." We extract the
report from the Spring field Republican —" The
skull, as your readers know, was discovered in
February, 1866, in a mine belonging to Scribner
and Matterson ; it lay imbedded in a mass of
" cement," or gravelly detritus near the bottom of
a deep shaft, which had been sunk vertically about
200 feet, through a hill of the hardest rock ; near it
was a piece of petrified oak ; when found, its real
nature was hardly discoverable, and the finder
supposed it might be part of the root of a fossil
tre?. Dr. 'William Jones, the leading physician
and surgeon of that region, in June, 1866, wrote
to the State Geologist, stating the facts about
this discovery. Professor Whitney shortly after
this came in possession of the skull, and has
himself visited, on several occasions, the locality
where it was found. All the geological pheno-
mena of the region correspond to the statements of
Scribner and Matterson, Dr. Jones and the miners,
about the discovery. It was impracticable for
Professor Whitney or his assistants to go to the
bottom of the shaft, where the discovery was made,
it being full of water, but they carefully ques-
tioned the miners about the minute details of the
finding of this bony wonder. The testimony was
most explicit, and they were quite without motive
to falsehood, knowing, as they did, nothing about
the bearing of the matter. scientifically, -or its refe-
rence to the question of the: antiquity of man.
Mr. Matterson took the skull with his own hand
from " Bed No. 8," encased as it was in cement or
gravel, and lying in the channel of an ancient river
bed. The lower jaw, the entire parietal and occipital
parts, and the lover part of the base are gone. The
frontal bone is almost entire, as are the bones of
the face. It is evidently the skull of an aged per-
son, as the condition of the teeth aid in showing. It
was covered with a thin incrustation of calcareous
tufa when discovered, and not till a few weeks since
was any change made in its condition, when Pro-
fessor Whitney chiselled away the tufa from its
surface. A small circular piece of shell is attached
to the skull, which might have once served as an
ornament. It is evidently no ordinary skull picked
up at random; it has the appearance of having been
violently broken in the thickest part; it was probably
swept away from the place of original deposit by
the action of water ; the position in which it was
found seems to Professor 'Whitney conclusive proof
of an antiquity far exceeding that of the historic
Adam. Dr. Wyman has examined the skull with
special reference to its ethnological relations, or
its kindred with the skull shapes of living
races. He found it large in the frontal re-
gion, the face somewhat deformed, the region over
the orbits strongly marked, the molar or cheek
bones prominent. He says it presents no sign of
belonging to a race inferior to the race now inha-
biting California ; wherein it differs, it approxi-
mates the characteristics of the Esquimaux. It was
found imbedded in the fresh water tertiary deposits
of the Sierra Nevada, and as far as geological data
now ascertained bear witness, it is probably coeval
in origin with the formation of the very ancient
deposit. This scientific hypothesis, if established,
would show that this broken-headed antiquity, an-
tedated by many, many ages, the good old times of
Eden ; perhaps the owner of this skull then was
the original sinner ; indeed, his remains look as
though he might have been a " hard case." The
skull was found in the same deposit with the fossil
bones of the mastodon and 'other extinct species of
animals; a still further corroboration of the hypo-
thesis in question. Professor Whitney classes the
formation in which the skull was found in the
pliocene division, and thinks it not too bold for an
American geologist to speculate about a pliocene
man, when the Europeans are beginning to fellow-
ship in thought with a miocene man. Professor
'Whitney exhibited also a large number of other
fossil specimens from the Sierra Nevada region ;
among them a number of species quite new to
the geologist ; in addition, he was able to show
to the academy a number of Indian relics, just
obtained at Holyoke, where an extensive Indian
burial ground had just been opened in the exca.
vations for a new road ; some copper utensils were
among these relics, and some articles quite unknown
among earlier discoveries of this sort.
Dr. Newbury, of Detroit, followed with a few
forceful words. He felt that it was too soon for
a thorough discussion of this important question,
since the data were not complete nor of final
authority. A species of the existing flora was
found with this skull, showing that it was not
impossible that it belonged to the same class as
here found in caves, and plainly not pre-Adamic.
Professor Whitney considered it proved that this
skull could not be so classified. Professor Guyot
was satisfied with the truth of all the circum-
stances cited, and yet did not feel that they forced
us back, by necessity, to an antiquity much, if at
all, greater than the limit of historic data. Accord-
ing to geological testimony it was altogether pro-
bable that the historic human race had been con-
temporary with the mastodOn and some other now
extinct species of animals. He believed more scien-
tific proof necessary to a rational conviction of the
existence of the pre-historic skull in question. Dr.
Newbury said 'e few words controverting what he
regarded as the too easily chosen position of Pro-
fessor Guyot. Professor Lesley also made an argu-
ment of some length in opposition to Professor
Guyot. Professor Brewer said a few words in con-
firmation of the position taken by Professor Whit-
ney, drawing his argument from actual observations
made by himself in regard to the gravel fromwhich
the skull had been taken.

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