The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1929-01-31
CLOzEL ANOTHER
HISTORIC FAKE
French Discovery" Takes
Place Among Other At
tempts to Fool Public.

| New YOrk.-Last winter French
public opinion was shaken to its
foundations, in a way difficult for
Americans to understand, by the an
nOuncement that discoveries at the
little village Of Glozel, near Vichy,
in the valley Of the Loire, had
proved the existence of man in
high state of civilization in fabu-
lousy prehistoric times. Now the
Glozel excitement is probably over.
Those who believed that the mel
lOwness of French culture rests on
a foundation thousands instead of
hundreds of years old will have
to look elsewhere for their evil
dence. Glozel probably will take
its place among the scientific fakes
which from time to time engage the
popular attention, says the New
York Times.
Not long ago France was di-
vided into Glozelites and anti
Gl0zelites. Ugly rumors of decep-
ton began to be heard. Objects
said to have been picked up in the,
Glozel pits were found to be crude,
forgeries. The Glozelites replied
that these objects had been planted
by members of the opposition in an
effort to discrediI the discoveries
Finally the French government took
a hand and M. Bayle of the ju-
dietary police was sent to make a,
thorough examination. M. Bayle,
x1,oc n roo1 dofaofiyo tbnY,rh not q ,,
archeologist. His report, rendered
a few days ago, has apparently,
punctured the Glozel bubble.
M. Bayle selected ten objects at!
random from the Glozel museum
The evidence Of modern manufac-
ture was overwhelming. A bit of
grass embedded in supposedly
ancient piece of earthenware wasl
found under the microscope to have
all its cells Understanding that
could hardly have happened had It'll
been thousands of years UNDER
ground. Bits of thread in other
pieces Of pottery had been colored
with aniline dyes, which were mott
used prior to the Twentieth century.
Bone instruments still had gela-I
tinous matter in the marrow. In
scriptions probably had been made,
with modern steel instruments. i
Fakes like Glozel have been COM
mon and have usually been mOmen-
tarily successful. Readers of Mark
Twain will remember the "prehis-
toric man. whom he reported hav-
ing been dug up near Virginia City,
New.
An Unintentional Hoax.
This story, first published in the
Virginia City Enterprise, on which
Mark Twain was then reporter,
contained a detailed description of
the position in which the supposed
body had been found which, had It
been carefully read, would have re-
veaied the hoax. Nevertheless, It'll
went far and caused great excite
ment.
Almost as ludicrous, though In
this case seriously intended as a.
fraud, was the so-called Cardiff
giant, dug up at Cardiff, AnOndagoI
county, New York, about the midi
die of the last century. This
strange object was found by a man
who was digging a well for GER
tian Mr.. Newell. 1t was huge fig
ure, which might have been either
statue or petrified human body,
lying on it's side and contOrted as
though in great pain. The thrifty
Mr.. Newell placed the remains, If
such they were, on exhibition, and
charged an admission fee to the
thousands who came to see them.
He even succeeded in interesting P.
T. Barnum, who was, in fact, ac-
cused of having initiated the
whole enterprise. His advertise
ments, more clever than truthful,
made it appear that the leading sci
entific men of the day had testi-
fed to the genuineness of the find.
AS matter of fact the Cardiff
giant was a pure fake. The plan
had been originated by Newel's
brother-in-law, George Hull of
Binghamton. Hull bought a block
Of gypsum at Fort Dodge, Iowa,
had it carved by German stonecut-
ter in Chicago, and then planted it
on the Newell farm. The strained
position which aroused so much
sympathy was due to the fact that
the stone had broken in transit, so
that the original design had to be
contracted within smaller space.
The stonecutter had done a good
job with steel hammer, putting
in pores and other body marks very
lndustriously.
Perpetual Motion.
Many famous hoaxes have had
to do with machines supposed to
defy the law of conservation of en-
ergy by producing perpetual mo-
ton. One of the first Of these was
perpetrated by a man named Red
heffer in Philadelphia about 1872.
Redheffer announced that he had
solved the problem of making
machine that would run forever.
He was taken so seriously that the
Pennsylvania legislature nominated
commission of distinguished en-
gineers to inspect his invention.
The story is told by Prof. Dan
lei w. Herring in his "Foibles and
Fallacies of Science" When the
commission arrived on the scene at
the appointed hour they found Red.
leffer absent and the doors locked
but were able to inspect the ap-i
! paratus through barred window.
They suspected fraud, but were not
able to gather final proof. Later
the machine was taken to New
! York, where Robert Fulton, listen.
ing to the click of the cogs, made
/ the discovery that 1t was being