634 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
shaft. I inquired of Mr Matson how it came to be rumored that the skull was taken from ' mud spring in Salt Spring valley 9 and thence conveyed to his mining shaft. He answered that 1 Before I began mining at that place and several years back into the decade of 1850, a Mrs Hoffman had gathered several skulls from Salt Spring valley, a place some twelve miles distant from Angels, and had them on exhibition in a sort of cabinet collec- tion/ One of these heads had been fractured and crushed on the left parietal bone, the line of fracture running to the temple. Some similitude or relationship between these and the Calaveras head was believed to exist. But how or in what manner nobody could tell, for none knew.
" It may be proper here to say that Mr Matson is a plain, hard-working day laborer, a blacksmith by calling. He seems to be. a very honest-appearing man. He evidences no disposition to magnify, falsify, or to depart from the correct line of truth. Here ends all there is or, as far as I can learn, ever was, about the so-called ' joke ' over the Calaveras skull ; except its occa- sional rehearsal, and the more important fact that it was a joke by Matthews on Dr Jones and not on Professor Whitney.
" As mentioned above, the animus of it was not to play upon the spirit of scientific inquiry, nor to deride native anthropo- logical study; but it was a trick sprung on the spur of the moment in a spirit of humorous hilarity by Matthews, Scribner's partner in business. But the Doctor, being the victim, did not see the point."
This story is interesting as emanating from Mr Scribner, who, according to many accounts, knew more than any other person regarding the origin and early movements of the skull.
At Angels Camp I visited Mr Rasmussen, a former business partner of Mr Scribner's, but he had given the matter little atten- tion and did not know whether Scribner believed in the authen- ticity of the skull or not ; but Mr George Stickle, present postmaster of the village, showed a decided interest in the
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