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 626 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899.

object as a skull when taken from the gravel, but " thought it to be a piece of the root of a tree." Mr Scribner also stated that when the skull was brought to him " it was so imbedded and in- crusted with earthy and stony material that he did not recognize what it was." Mr Mattison, however, seems to have considered the curious gravel-covered lump of sufficient interest to note care- fully the conditions under which it was found, " as if deposited in the eddy of a stream," and soon afterward carried it in a bag to Angels, presenting it to Mr Scribner, merchant and Wells Fargo & Go's agent. It was not until a clerk in Mr Scribner's store, prob- ably Mr Matthews, cleaned off a portion of the incrusting mate- rial, that any one suspected that the object was a human skull. Soon after this the skull was sent to Dr William Jones, at Mur- phy's, twelve miles away. The Doctor was an enthusiastic collec- tor of natural history specimens, and, regarding the skull as having more than ordinary interest, wrote to the office of the State Geo- logical Survey in San Francisco, describing the specimen. A few days later, on June 29th, at the request of Mr Wm. M. Gabb, paleontologist of the Survey, the Doctor forwarded it to San- Francisco.

Professor Whitney soon afterward visited Calaveras county and proceeded to make careful inquiries into the origin of the skull. He visited Mr Mattison and others, obtaining the state- ments embodied in his report, and became convinced that the skull had been found precisely as described by Mr Mattison, and that its subsequent history was correctly given by Mr Scribner and Dr Jones.

When delivered to Professor Whitney the base of the skull was "imbedded in a conglomerate mass of ferruginous earth, water-worn pebbles of much altered volcanic rock, calcareous tufa, and fragments of bones. This mixed material covered the whole base of the skull and filled the left temporal fossa, conceal- ing the whole of the jaw. A thin calcareous incrustation appears to have covered the whole skull when found ; portions of it had

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