The Philipsburg mail. [volume] (Philipsburg, Mont.) 1887-current, 1893-09-28
PETRIFIED TO ORDER.
Origin of the Numerous Fossilized Human
Bodies From California.

Origin of the Numerous Fossilized Human
Bodies From California.
California has become famous for MANY
things in the comparatively short time since
she began making authentic history but
for nothing is the state more famous than
for the natural wonders that yet remain to
tell of the epochs when history was not
written, but embodied in the rocks and
trees. Not the least of these wonders is the
petrified forest near Calistoga in Napa
county, the fame Of which has been widely
spread abroad, attracting many visitors of
scientific tendencies and many who are sim
ply curious. ~.a-
Perhaps it was some of these curious Wis
itors who disseminated the notion that fos-
slllZation was comparatively common
matter in the Golden State. Anyhow the.
idea seems to have become sufficiently pop
ularized to greatly assist certain enterpris-
ing gentlemen of the little town of Selmar
In Fresno county, who made a business Of
furnishing what purported to be human
petrifactions to museums and other insti-
tutions, and they found a gullble public
quite willing to accept their goods without
the grain of salt that usually accompanies
tall stories and difficult facts.
These gentlemen did a thriving business
for long time, but finally petrified human
bodies became so numerous as to suggest
the idea that mine of them had been
found and was being gradually unloaded
On the curiosity market. Then an inquisi-
tive San Francisco reporter, G. ]. Stillwell
by name, began an investigation that e.
suited in the discovery that Il man named
Bozeman, living about nine miles south of
Selma, had manufactured all these alleged
petrifactions, and that he would agree to
furnish them of either sex and of any color
or apparent race that a purchaser desired
The reporter got him to make contract to
furnish lone stone of petrified woman, to
be SO cast as to apparently be the petriied
remains of a member of the race of ancient
mound builders of Central America, the
figure to be discovered as though in good
faith in the Coast range of mountains and
under circumstances likely to give rise to
press reports favorable to the story that it
is genuine petrifaction."
Bozeman had started out with fairy
tale about mysterious stream in the Coast
range whose waters left calcareous depos-
its in the cavities of everything it touched
and so in time turned it to stone. Fish,
birds, animals and vegetables all came un-
der the fossiliferous influence of this water,
and it was not at all remarkable that hui
man DOdles were petrlned Dy IL. Inc SIN
gular thing about it wes the way the bodies
ever got there, whereupon the reporter
promptly called Bozeman an old liar, and
as the result of the frank understanding
thus established secured after little fur
ther talk the contract above quoted
The method of making the fraudulent
petrifactions is exceedingly simple when
once it has been explained. They are made
from living models, who after their bodies
are properly prepared and oiled PROSTATE
themselves in a bed of clay or sand until
cast has been taken of one side of their
bodies, when they repeat the process to get
a cast of the other side. These casts are
then used as molds, and the "petrifaction'
is made in them of some material of which
Bozeman would not betray the secret but
which he declared would turn out a perfect
copy of the original, even to the wrinkles in
the flesh and the pores in the skin.