Professor Whitney exhibited a portion of a human skull recently deposited at the office of the State Geological Survey, by Dr. Thomas Jones, of Murphy’s Camp, Calaveras County. He read the following:

Notice of a Human Skull, recently taken from a Shaft near Angel’s, Calaveras County.

BY J. D. WHITNEY.

This skull was taken from a shaft sunk on a mining claim at Altaville, near Angel’s, in Calaveras County, by Mr. James Matson. By him it was given to Mr. Scribner, of Angel’s, and by Mr. Scribner to Dr. Jones. Mr. Matson states that the skull was found at a depth of about one hundred and thirty feet, in a bed of gravel five feet in thickness, above which are four beds of consolidated volcanic ash, locally known as “lava”; these volcanic beds are separated from each other by layers of gravel, and Mr. Matson gives the following as the section of the various deposits passed through in sinking the shaft, which is one hundred and fifty-three feet deep, to the bed rock:

1.Black lava40feet.
2.Gravel3”
3.Light lava30”
4.Gravel5”
5.Light lava15”
6.Gravel25”
7.Dark brown lava9”
8.Gravel5”
9.Red lava4”
10.Red Gravel17”
153feet.

The skull was found, according to Mr. Matson, in bed number 8, just above the lowest stratum of lava. With the skull were found fragments of silicified wood, the whole being covered and partly incrusted with stony matter, so that the fact of its being a skull was not recognized until after it had passed into Mr. Scribner’s hands, by whom it was cleaned and presented to Dr. Jones.

The skull is said by Mr. Matson to have been taken from the shaft February 25th, 1866, and it came into my hands in the July following, when I immediately proceeded to the locality; but found the shaft temporarily abandoned and partly filled with water, so that it was impossible at that time to make any farther search in the bed from which the skull was procured. A careful inquiry into all the circumstances of the alleged discovery, and an interview with all the persons who had been in any way connected with it, impressed upon my mind the conviction that the facts were as stated above, and that there was every reason to believe that the skull really came from the position assigned to it by Mr. Matson. Still, as it is evidently highly desirable that as large an amount of evidence as possible should be accumulated in regard to a discovery of so much importance, I made arrangements that I should be notified whenever the shaft was reopened and the water taken out, and hope at a future meeting to be able to lay before the Academy the results of a personal examination of this interesting locality, and of further excavations in the bed from which the skull was taken.

Assuming the correctness of Mr. Matson’s statements, this relic of human antiquity is easily seen to be an object of the greatest interest to the ethnologist as well as the geologist. The previous investigations of the Geological Survey have clearly demonstrated the fact that man was contemporaneous with the mastodon and elephant, since the works of his hands have been repeatedly found in such connection with the bones of these animals that it would be impossible to account for the facts observed on any other theory. (See Geology of California, Vol. I, p. 252.) But in the case of the skull now laid before the Academy, the geological position to which it must be assigned is, apparently, still lower than that of the mastodon, since the remains of this animal, as well as the elephant, which are so abundantly scattered over this State, are always (so far as our observations yet extend) limited in their position to the superficial deposits, and have never been found at any considerable depth below the surface. There is every reason to believe that these great proboscidians lived at a very recent date, (geologically speaking) and posterior to the epoch of the existence of glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, and also after the close of the period of activity of the now extinct volcanoes of that great chain. In fact, they belong to the present epoch. The bed, on the other hand, in which this skull was found, must have been deposited at a time when the volcanoes of the Sierra were still in vigorous action, and, as seems to us highly probable from a careful consideration of the geological structure of the region, previous to the glacial epoch of the Sierra, and also previous to the erosion of the cañons of the present rivers. No pains will be spared, however, to investigate all the conditions of the occurrence of this skull, and they will be fully reported on at a future time.

The portions of the skull which are preserved are, the frontal bone, the nasal bone, the superior maxillary bone of the right side, the malar bones, a part of the temporal bone of the left side, with the mastoid process and the zygomatic process, and the whole of the orbits of both eyes. The base of the skull is embedded in a mass of bone breccia and small pebbles of volcanic rock, incrusted with a thin layer of carbonate of lime, which appears once to have extended over the whole surface of the skull and of which a considerable portion still remains, the rest having been removed apparently in the process of cleaning. Under the malar bone of the left side, a snail shell is lodged, and partly concealed by the breccia of bone wedged in the cavity. This shell is the Helix Mormonum, according to Dr. Cooper, a species now living in the region where the skull was obtained. Although not competent to express a decided opinion on the subject of the ethnological relations of this skull, I should suppose that it belonged to the type of the Indians now inhabiting the foot-hills of the Sierra. It is certain that the facial angle is not one indicating a low order of intellect. The skull, however, seems to have been very thick and solid. It will be placed in the hands of competent craniologists for examination and description, as soon as reliable information has been obtained with regard to its occurrence, or whenever all has been ascertained that can be.