holmes] A URIFEROUS GRA VEL MAN 633
ancient remains, he, with a pious imprecation on the head of the other fellow and his impudence, gave it a toss into the back yard. There the bony thing, which had long resisted the tooth of final destruction, was again exposed to a more quickening action of hurtful elements. There in the damp of rain and mildew it remained for many months unnoticed. There it is quite likely, indeed probable, that the little Helix mormonum which can be seen photographed at the right hand base of the figure [plate XXIX, a] became attached.
14 At length Mr Matson, in one of his occasional visits to Murphy's, saw, like a familiar ghost, his old acquaintance, the same old head. He inquired of Dr Jones where he got it, not knowing what disposition Mr Scribner and company had made of it. Learning for the first time that several months anterior thereto Matson had dug the head out of his own shaft 128 feet below the surface of the ground, the Doctor then suspected it might turn out something of interest. These unlooked-for facts at once invested the dirty top-knot with new and even profound considerations. It was soon photographed by Mr Alonzo Rhodes of Murphy's, and the negative was sent to Mr Shew at San Francisco where pictures were printed. The attention of Professor Whitney was now called to the resurrected head. He in company with Mr Matson, the miner, visited the now old and abandoned miners' shaft. They found it partly filled with water and dirt, which was soon pumped dry. Mr Matson pointed out on the wall of the bank the precise spot the interesting object lay in conjunction with fragments of wood. The wood he thought was a fragment from quite a large tree. From this spot Whitney told Mr Scribner he gathered gravel and carefully com- pared it with that scraped from the skull. They proved identical one with the other. It seemed the gravels in the different layers above were of other kinds. This fact precludes the possibility of designing person or persons securing the object ' from Salt-Spring valley ' (as opposers have asserted), and dropped it down the
�� �
