Struggles for Truth: Scientists, Hucksters, and Charlatans in Nineteenth-Century America

in the united states during the latter half of the nineteenth century, the earth in its various regions offered inviting venues to scammers and charlatans. If land syndicators had long exploited the nascent nation's money-hungry culture, now fraudsters also hawked wonders taken from the ground and, especially in the Far West—a region then little known to most white Americans—get-rich-quick deposits of silver, gold, and precious gems. The come-ons, disseminated by telegraph and railroads, spread quickly across the country, attracting gullible voyeurs and investors. They also drew the critical attention of leading scientists, some of whom, morally aroused, exposed the perpetrators with expert knowledge and experienced eyes. Scientists were already figuring as expert witnesses in the Anglo-American courts (Golan 2004). Now they were emerging as would-be arbiters of truth in the free-for-all culture of the American market economy.

one october night in 1869, behind william c. sewell's barn in cardiff, a village in Onondaga, New York, a local worker dug up the seemingly intact remains of a remarkable human-like creature—an apparently petrified specimen fully 10.5 feet long and, in the awed phrase of a later account, "nude, virile and unabashed" (Schuchert 1938, 13). The excavation pit was covered with a tent. Soon laymen came to gawk, and so did various anatomists, sculptors, historians, and geologists. Several ethnologists and naturalists, among them Spencer F. Baird, the secretary of the Smithsonian, ridiculed the claim that "Cardiff Man"—so the statuesque remains came to be called—was truly an ancient petrifaction. The organizers of the tent display invited a small group of experts to inspect their find, including the New York State Geologist James Hall. They scrutinized it undisturbed for a quarter of an hour. Hall knocked a piece off the giant with his geological hammer. Although he said that the rock of which it was composed did not come from New York State, he publicly declared it "the most remarkable object yet brought to light in this country," adding that "although perhaps not dating back to the Stone Age," it was "nevertheless deserving the attention of archeologists" (Clarke 1921, 438–43; Schuchert 1938).

Cardiff Man was soon moved to Albany, where scientists arranged for his exhibition in a railed-off area of the lecture room in the state's geological hall. Sessions of the Albany Institute were devoted to assessments of the specimen, and people in droves paid to see it. Cardiff Man's owners then transported him for display to New York City. To their chagrin, they found an exhibit in Wood's Museum, which had once belonged to P. T. Barnum, advertising "the only and original Onondaga Stone Giant" and warning, "Beware of Imitation Giants." The Wood's impresarios offered the showmen from Albany $1,000 if they could prove that the specimen in Wood's was not the original. The Albany men, ignoring the challenge, simply installed their giant in Apollo Hall, just two blocks from Wood's. Barnum himself came to look upon what he reportedly called this "lapidous enigma," his face beaming in admiration (Clarke 1921, 442).

Like Spencer Baird, Othniel C. Marsh was suspicious. A rising star in vertebrate paleontology and a professor at Yale University, he learned the giant's true story from a man from Fort Dodge, Iowa. Part of the Albany crew, the man was dissatisfied with his share of the profits. He told Marsh that he had "got up that giant" from a block of Iowa gypsum; the giant had been carved from the block in Chicago and shipped to Cardiff, where it had been hauled by night to its burial site. When ultimately dug up, it was presented with full attention to all the required details. Marsh himself inspected Cardiff Man when it was on exhibit in Syracuse, determining that it was in fact composed of gypsum. The giant shined with a polished surface. Since gypsum is soluble in water, Marsh concluded that the giant could not have retained its sheen so long after burial. He...