As an exposer of humbugs Marsh took a prominent place. One of these related to the so-called "Cardiff Giant." Sometime in 1869 the newspapers announced the discovery in northern New York, near the Canadian border, of an extraordinary fossil man, or colossal statue, people were not sure which, eight or ten feet high. It was found several feet below the ground while digging a well. Men of some scientific repute, including even one so eminent as Professor James Hall, had endorsed the genuineness of the find, and, on the strength of this, it was taken around to show the public. In the course of a journey through New York State, Marsh happened to pass through the town where the object was on exhibition. His train stopped forty minutes for dinner, which would give him time to drive to the place and back, and leave a margin of about fifteen minutes for an examination of the statue. Hardly more than a glance was necessary to show its fraudulent character. Inside the ears the marks of a chisel were still plainly visible, showing that the statue had been newly cut. One of the most curious features was that the stone had not been large enough to make the complete statue, so that the surface was, in one place, still in the rough. The object had been found in wet ground. Its material was sulphate of lime, the slight solubility of which would have been sufficient to make it dissolve entirely away in the course of centuries. The absence of any degradation showed that the thing was comparatively new. On the strength of this, Marsh promptly denounced the affair as a humbug. Only a feeble defense was made for it, and, a year or two later, the whole story came out. It had been designed and executed somewhere in the Northwest, transported to the place where discovered, and buried, to be afterward dug up and reported as a prehistoric wonder.
Only a few years ago the writer had an opportunity of seeing with what wonderful ease intelligent men can be imposed upon by these artificial antiquities. The would-be exhibitor of a fossil woman, found I know not where, appeared in Washington. He had not discovered the fossil himself, but had purchased it for some such sum as $100, on the assurance of its genuine character. He seems, however, to have had some misgivings on the subject, and, being an honest fellow, invited some Washington scientific men to examine it in advance of a public exhibition. The first feature to strike the critical observer was that the arms of the fossil were crossed over the breast in the most approved undertaker's fashion, showing that if the woman had ever existed, she had devoted her dying moments to arranging a pose for the approval of posterity. Little more than a glance was necessary to show that the fossil was simply baked clay. Yet the limbs were hard and stiff. One of the spectators therefore asked permission of the owner to bore with an auger into the leg and see what was inside. A few moments' work showed that the bone of the leg was a bar of iron, around which clay had been moulded and baked. I must do the crestfallen owner the justice to say that his anxiety to convince the spectators of his own good faith in the matter far exceeded his regret at the pecuniary loss which he had suffered.
Another amusing experience that Marsh had with a would-be fossil arose out of the discovery here and there in Connecticut of the fossil footprints of birds. Shortly after a find of this kind had been announced, a farmer drove his wagon up in front of the Peabody Museum, called on the professor, and told him he had dug up something curious on his farm, and he wished the professor would tell him what it was. He thought it looked like the footprints of a bird in a stone, but he was not quite sure.
Marsh went out and looked at the stone. A single glance was enough.
"Oh, I see what they are. They are the footprints of the domestic turkey. And the oddest part of it is, they are all made with the right foot."
The simple-minded countryman, in making the prints with the turkey's foot, had overlooked the difference between the right and left foot, and the consequent necessity of having the tracks which pertained to the two feet alternate.
Washington is naturally a centre of information on all subjects relating to the aboriginal tribes of America and to life on the plains generally. Besides the Geological Survey, the Bureau of Ethnology has been an active factor in this line. An official report cannot properly illustrate life in all its aspects, and therefore should be supplemented by the experiences of leading explorers. This is all the more necessary if, as seems to be the case, the peculiar characteristics of the life in question are being replaced by those more appropriate to civilization. Yet the researches of the bureau in question are not carried on in any narrow spirit, and will supply the future student of humanity with valuable pictures of the most heroic of all races, and yet doomed, apparently, to ultimate extinction. I do not think I ever saw a more impressive human figure and face than those of Chief Joseph as he stood tall, erect, and impassive, at a President's reception in the winter of 1903. He was attired in all the brilliancy of his official costume; but not a muscle of his strongly marked face betrayed the sentiments with which he must have gazed on the shining uniforms passing before him.
[1] Men and Measures of Half a Century, by Hugh McCulloch. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons, 1889.