EVIDENCE OF AN HONEST DISCOVERY.
The first evidence to be certain of in a case of this kind is doubtless that deducible from the circumstances attending the discovery itself, and upon it, in the present instance, for the reason that the Stone has been cleaned, and all vestiges of the soil which originally clung to it unfortunately removed, we must chiefly depend.
The fact that several persons saw the first fragment immediately after it left Hansell's hands, throws back the period of possible doubt as to its authenticity to the nine years of his ownership, while the remarkable skill and archæological knowledge necessary to forge such a stone place him as the possible maker of the carvings above the slightest suspicion. The motive of gain must be eliminated from the possibilities of the case, when we consider the trifling sum received by Hansell for the relics, and the fact that the small piece was presented by him to the present owner, while the supposition that he could have been in collusion with any person unknown for the purpose of a practical joke is rendered impossible by his own honest simplicity and the conduct of his family and friends throughout. Again, no one clever enough to have made the relic could have been a neighbor of Hansell's and remained unknown or unsuspected, and it is quite absurd to suppose that some one from a distance, having entrusted the fortunes of so elaborate a practical joke to the fragments of this small stone, would have "planted" the results of his labor in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, where the chances were very strongly against its being brought to the notice of archæologists, even if discovered.
OBJECTIONS OF ARCHÆOLOGISTS.
From the a-posteriori point of view—i. e., from the character and appearance of the carving, there are objections which have been considered important to the Stone's authenticity; these the writer has carefully noted, and will allow them to speak for themselves.
First, in the opinion of Messrs. M. E. Wadsworth, of Cambridge, and Joseph P. Iddings, of the United States Coast Survey, the carvings were made after the Stone was broken. The fact is proved, they say, by the appearance of certain lines crossing the fracture, as in the case of the lightning above the hole on the right, which, when exposed to the microscope, seem as they cross to descend into it.
Secondly, the fracture, they say, crosses the minimum number of carvings as if they had been arranged with reference to it.
Thirdly, the mammoth on the Stone resembles the La Madeleine carving.