SKELETON FIDDLES

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LIII, Issue 8683, 10 September 1924, Page 2

SKELETON FIDDLES

A young fisherman. Wallace Stiles, was exploring lbo cliffs about ten miles from Kuroka. California, when in a crevice in the rocks he found a large cavern where there was a spectacle which almost. froze him witu terror. 'Die tishonnan saw a wellpreserved human skeleton, sitting upon a low shell of rock, its hack restin"- against the wall of the chamber, and one bony hand still grasping the fiddle, the fingers of the right hand being tightly clutched about, a violin bow. There was no strings on the m--irumem and little- hair in the bow.

When Stiles bad gathered sufficient courage to give the skeleton a close inspection he found that its skull had Ins'ii fractured on the top, as it a heave rack' had fallen upon it. In fact, there was a piece oi rock, weighin cr about six pounds, lying near the skeleton's feet. The skull still bore a few tufts of grey hair. Crude cooking utensils wore scattered about in one coiner of the cavern, and two rusty guns and an old hardwood chest were also font ml. hut rats nr .some other gnawing animals had made many holes in the chest, and nearly devoured -what seemed to have once been wearing apparel made of skins. Stiles hastened back tn town to toll of his discovery. A party of fifteen persons, including a high .school professor, chartered a tug and went to the cave.

After two hours’ inspection of the skeleton fiddler and his evident Irelongings at the time of his sudden death, it was resolved to send; to Berkley for "Professors Briggs and Dobyns. eminent scientists, and to leave everything in the cave exactly as discovered until their arrival. A strange feature of the mystery is the fact that the violin, a somewhat scarred instrument, hut otherwise well preserved, as well as the bow, are held by the skeleton in a position that points to the man having been playing when ho met his death.

“IDld-timcrsC recall the fact that about 30 years ago there was a jolly old hunter and trapper in those parts who played the fiddle and whose sudden and strange disappearance was nettop solved. It is presumed that the rats or other animals that gnawed their way into the old chest stripped the flesh from the man’s skeleton, which are believed to be the remains of the musical trapper who disappeared 30 years ago.