A SUPPOSED SPECIMEN OF ABORIGINAL ART,
Discovered at Gondola Point, parish of Rothesay, in Kings County, New Brunswick, and exhibited at the Provincial Exhibition held at the Mechanics' Institute, St. John, New Brunswick. (Autumn of A. D. 1851?)
By G. F. Matthew.
Living in the neighborhood of the spot where this object was found, I undertook, at the request of J. Allen Jack, esq., to make inquiry into the circumstances connected with its discovery. It had been found, I was told, on the farm of Andrew Kilpatrick (now owned by David Kilpatrick), about half a mile from the Episcopal church, near Gondola Point. It was turned out from a depth of between three and four feet below the surface of the ground in digging a cellar on the farm referred to; and was intrusted to Mr. Harding to take to St. John and exhibit at the provincial exhibition held at the Mechanics' Institute (in the year 1851?)
In general outline the object, which is a rough-looking stone, is of an oval form, 2 feet 11 ⅝ inches long, 1 foot 3 ½ inches broad, and 1 foot 2 ⅞ inches deep; and as regards most of its surface does not differ from an ordinary bowlder of Lower Carboniferous conglomerate, numbers of which lie scattered around the neighboring fields. This conglomerate consists chiefly of pieces of granite, and protogene in association with less numerous, but characteristic fragments of crystalline limestone of the upper series of the Laurentian area, the border of which lies about a mile to the southward of the point where the bowlder was found. I am satisfied, therefore, that the bowlder was not brought from a distance, but belongs in the neighborhood where it was dug up.
While, as regards most of its surface, this stone does not differ from an ordinary bowlder, there is an exception in the appearance of one end. This has been carved into the form of a human head, looking out, as it were, from the end of the stone. The features are aquiline, rudely carved, and somewhat irregular, as though chiseled by an unskilled hand. They present the appearance of having been worked out upon the surface of the stone by using certain hard protuberances as the basis for the more prominent features and graving the rest to correspond. The artist has apparently seized upon a rude semblance of the human face presented, and worked out the finer lineaments to correspond.
