The American Goliah | Page 3

general
opinion seems to be that the discovery was the "petrified body" of a

human being.
I spent most of yesterday and to-day, at the location of the so-called
"FOSSIL MAN," and made a survey of the surroundings of the place
where this wonderful curiosity was found. On a careful examination, I
am convinced that it is not a fossil, but was cut from a piece of
stratified sulphate of lime, (known as the Onondaga Gypsum.) If it
were pulverized or ground, a farmer would call it plaster. It was
quarried, probably, somewhere in this county, from our Gypsum beds.
The layers are of different colors--dark and light. The statue was
evidently designed to lie on its back, or partially so, and represents a
dead person in a position he would naturally assume when dying. The
body lies nearly upon the back, the right side a little lower; the head
leaning a little to the right. The legs lie nearly one above the other; the
feet partially crossed. The toe of the right foot, a little lower, showing
plainly, that the statue was never designed to stand erect upon its feet.
The left arm lies down by the left side of the body, the forearm and
hand being partially covered by the body. The right hand rests a short
distance below the umbilicus, the little finger spreading from the others,
reaching to the pubes. The whole statue evidently represents the
position that a body would naturally take at the departure of life.
There is perfect harmony in the different proportions of the different
parts of the statue. The features are strictly Caucasian, having not the
high bones of the Indian type, neither the outlines of the Negro race,
and being entirely unlike any statuary yet discovered of Aztec or Indian
origin. The chin is magnificent and generous; the eyebrow, or
supercilliary ridge, is well arched; the mouth is pleasant; the brow and
forehead are noble, and the "Adam's apple" has a full development. The
external genital organs are large; but that which represents the
integuments, would lead us the conclusion that the artist did not wish to
represent the erectal tissues injected.
The statue, being colossal and massive, strikes the beholder with a
feeling of awe. Some portions of the features would remind one of the
bust of De Witt Clinton, and others of the Napoleonic type. My opinion
is that this piece of statuary was made to represent some person of
Caucasian origin, and designed by the artist to perpetuate the memory
of a great mind and noble deeds. It would serve to impress inferior
minds or races with the great and noble, and for this purpose only was

sculptured of colossal dimensions. The block of gypsum is stratified,
and a dark stratum passes just below the outer portion of the left
eyebrow, appears again on the left breast, having been chiseled out
between the eyebrow and chest, and makes its appearance again in a
portion of the hip. Some portions of the strata are dissolved more than
others by the action of the water, leaving a bolder outcroping along the
descent of the breast toward the neck. The same may, less distinctly, be
seen on the side of the face and head. I think that this piece of reclining
statuary is not 300 years old, but is the work of the early Jesuit Fathers
of this country, who are known to have frequented the Onondaga
Valley from 220 to 250 years ago; that it would probably bear a date in
history corresponding with the monumental stone which was found at
Pompey Hill, in this county, and now deposited in the Academy at
Albany. There are no marks of violence upon the work; had it been an
image or idol of worship by the Indians, it could have been easily
destroyed or mutilated with a slight blow by a small stone, and the toes
and fingers could have been easily broken off. It lay in quicksand,
which, in turn, rested upon compact clay.
My conclusion regarding the object of the deposit of the statue in this
place, is as follows:--It was for the purpose of hiding and protecting it
from an enemy who would have destroyed it, had it been discovered. It
must have been carefully laid down, and as carefully covered with
boughs and twigs of trees which prevented it from being discovered.
Traces of this new decomposed vegetable covering can be seen on
every side of the trench, and it is quite evident this vegetable matter
originally extended across and above the statue.
Above this stratum of decayed matter, there is a deposit of very recent
date, from eighteen inches to two feet in thickness, which may have
been washed in, and likewise turned on by plowing. A farmer