The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1905-07-16
The Body Of Paul Zones.

In yesterdays Times-Dispatch, General
Horace Porter enlightened our readers
on the means taken to establish the
identity of the body of John Paul Jones.
In the current number Of the Now York
Independent the experts who assisted
General Porter in this Identification tell
the story completely. The details are
given moro especially by DR.. Georges
Pupillault. Tho grave of John Paul Jones
could not be located and his coffin was
not Marked but 1t was known that the
coffin was of lead, and that the body was
packed in a certain way ana that it WIS
buried 1T 4 certain cemetery Tho age OF
John Paul Jones wis known and the
teeth and hair correspbnded to- the teeth
ana hair OF a man Of that ago. II Is Known
that the admiral was dark complexoned
and TINT he had brown hair. His height
was also known and It was asccrtaincd.
as was to be expected that the length
Of his body when laid out was little
longer than the height Of the admiral
when standing '"rh,,s II happens, = says
Or. Papillault, that the. description Of
The admiral left us by his contemporaries
ITALICS in very satisfactory manner with
the corpse, WHICH was followed upon the
in his ma lnrity With brown hail: and. /
meter 10 TALL
That was n good starter, Tor the
further guidance of the experts there wcrc
two busts Of the admiral, one by Houdon
whose name is familiar.t TO Virginians and
the other from a Philadelphia, gallery
The lloudon bust was mainly used and
measurements were made according to
tho latest scientific system, of the face
and body Under examination. These
measurements correspond. practically in
every particularly to tho measurements of
the lIoudon bust. DIR. Papllault tells us
that some years ago he made studies
concerning the notifications and de-
formations which characterize the, work
of artists when they copy nature Tie
measured the models first, and the
sta tues afterwards, and tried to arrive at
some rule governing the matter and he
followed these rules in making the
measurements In the case under review.
But in order to make ssrc, he utilized
Il series OF two hundred bodies, on which
no had made some years ago n certain
number Of measures. llo carefully exam
incd these measures to see If any Of them
correspondcd with that perta ming to John
Puul Jones and he first threw out half
the subjects because they were women.
This left him ono hundred male bodies,
or these only about ten were about the
rIsht height and only half of these ten
had hair that could be said to be brown,
but OF the face measures not one had tho
same length ms tho anmlrals face. This
experiment." says he, demonstrates the
.act that ono hundred corpscs, taken at
hazard, were Immediately eliminated on
applying TO them but three OF the char
acteristics peculiar to the admiral "letus
| suppose" he continues ''iNh 80 had
| found among several thousand bodies five
! VINO nave tllt SAINT HtlBfll, lle Sdlnc
colored hair and tlh same length of face
as the admiral; it Is easy to imagine
how quickly they would be pushed aside
when tried by the five other face dimen,
| sions. 1t Is evident, therefore, that an enor-
nous number of subjects would have 10 be
examined before We could hope to find
one that would correspond more or less
exactly to the figures before us; and
This subject found, general resemblance Of
the cheek bone, forehead, ETC., would still
be necessary hefore any useful conclusion
could be drawn
Rut tho experts We're not required Il
select ironltn thousand different subjects
The uncertainty would affect hut i yer,
snail numbrr of the dead bodies buried
under certain condtIons--in u lead coilil
for Instance. which wasrihe case viii
jones~anu III q fixed place, Mhieh, IL
II this instance. was u little abaildoned PRO