Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-06-24
WAS IT A NEWSPAPER FAKE.
PROFESSOR WILLIAM H. IIoLME S NOW DECLARES THE FAMOUS
CAIANERAS SKULL TO BE AN IMPOSITION-HAS BEEN IN THE
HARVARD MUSEUM FOR THIRTY YEARS.

Ever since the time when man first be-
gan to take an interest in the existence
of prehistoric races there have been men
who have found great pleasure in the
fact that they have been able to fool the
scientists. Again wonders nave been
found in the most unexpected places and
generally the alleged prehistoric specl-
men has been declared to be a hoax. We
have had the Cardiff Giant and relics of
the stone and other age have been UNI
earthed in almost every part of this
country from Maine to California. but
there have been but few fakes thai have
fooled as many scientists as the Famous
Calaveras skull.
When this remarkable skull was first
brought to the attention of the scientific
world, in 1866. no one questioned its au-
thenticity. 1t was generally looked upon
as the Oldest skull in existence. and as
such was examined by almost every an
~thropologist and ethnologist of note in
the country. According to the story that
was told. the skull was found 1870 feet be-
low the surface in Bald mountain, Cal
averas county, Cal, and was IN close
proximity to a completely petrifled oak.
All along the region where this find was
made is a series of high, Handicapped
elevations, which rise from 500 to 400
feet above the bed of Angels creek. Bald
mountain is the most conspicuous of these
hills.
In sinking the shaft at the bottom of
which it was claimed the k was found
the miners penetrated a 40-foot strata of
black lava, followed by 3 feet of gravel,
80 feet Of light lava, 5 feet of gravel, Is
feet Of light lava, 25 feet of gravel, 9 feet
of dark brown ava and s feet of gravel,
at the bottom Of which the skull lay. so
thickly imbedded in and incrusted with
earthly and stony material that it was
some time before it was recognized as a
human skull.
In June, 1866, DR.. William Jones of
Murpheys, took the news to San Fran
cisco. and a party of government experts
at once went to the spot to examine the
skull and the place where it was alleged
to nave been found. The skull was by
no means a perfect one, as the whole Of
the parietal and nearly the whole of the
occipltal bones, as we'll as a large part
of the right half of the base of the skull
were missing. Most of the bones of the
face were intact, however, and the ex-
perts who examined the relic were salts
he'd. that 1T was a genuine specimen pre-
served in the earth since the prehistoric
ages.
Naturally enough there was a note Of
discord in the midst of this scientific re-
joicing. The archaeologists agreed that
1t was genuine, and estimated to to be
oiS WlcIc lIp!u lUU,UUv 10 DUU.UUU years
old, basing their calculations on the va
rlous strata of earth covering it. and the
discussion that followed was extremely
heated in it's character.
Professor Whitney of Harvard was one
of the emphatic advocates of the genu-
ineness of the discovery, and HI did a
great deal to arrest the suspicious that
We're felt, especially by the mass and file
of the newspaper readers of that time.
He assured the public that the relic was
actually the skull of a man who had lived
ages before. Chemical analysis, he said,
proved that it was not taken from the
surface, but that it had been dug up from
some place where it had been long depos-
tied, and where it had undergone changes
which do not take place in objects buried
near the surface.
For a year or more the various scien-
tific institutions pulled every possible
wire to get possession of the remarka-
bic relic, and at last it was taken to Cam
bridge, Mass, where for more than so
years it has rested in a glass case, the
most impOrtar mt of the many rare speci-
mems IN exhibit in the great museum of
Harvard university. OF course there have
been people who have persisted in re-
garding the C~alaveras skull as a hoax.
Before Bret Harte got civilization and
went to Europe; before he had amoothed
his tousled hair into a efine and proper
British bang, he wrote an address to this
relic of the p%liocene age. In this poem