Lying there on the surface, you can't tell if it was ploughed up from a farmer's field last year, or whether someone who collected arrowheads
found it elsewhere and lost it in that field, or whether someone was off knapping out flints for a rock show/commercial demonstration and lost it, or
whether it was dropped 1500 years ago or 4000 years ago.
A concern that the objects found imbedded within stone are being lied about by those who made the discoveries, etc., seems logical, though it seems
unjustified, but I don't quite see where you're going with objects that are found laying around
on surfaces rather than imbedded
in
them (ie, this thread's subject), especially when embedded into solid rock, which of course takes long periods of time to form.
If you go
here, you'll find part of an 1852 issue of
Scientific
American that carries the following article, titled "Relic of By-Gone Age":
A few days ago a powerful blast was made
in the rock at Meeting House Hill, in Dorches-
ter, a few rods south of Rev. Mr. Hall’s
meeting house. The blast threw out an im-
mense mass of rock, some of the pieces
weighing several tons and scattered small
fragments in all directions. Among them
was picked up a metallic vessel in two parts
rent assunder by the explosion. On putting
the two parts together it formed a bell-shaped
vessel, 4½ inches high, 6½ inches at the base
2½ inches at the top, and about an eight of an
inch in thickness. The body of this vessel
resembles zinc in color, or a composition me-
tal, in which there is a considerable portion of
silver. On the sides there are six figures of a
flower, or a bouquet, beautifully inlaid with pure
silver, and around the lower part of the vessel
a vine, or wreath, inlaid also with silver. The
chasing, carving, and inlaying are exquisitely
done by the art of some cunning workman.
This curious and unknown vessel was blown
out of the solid pudding stone, fifteen feet be-
low the surface. It is now in the possession
of Mr. John Kettell. Dr. J. V. C. Smith,
who has recently travelled in the East, and
examined hundreds of curious domestic uten-
sils, and has drawings of them, has never seen
anthing resembling this. He has taken a
drawing and accurate dimensions of it, to be
submitted to the scientific. There is no doubt
but that this curiousity was blown out of the
rock, as above stated; but will Professor
Agassiz, or some other scientific man please to
tell us how it came there? The matter is
worthy of investigation, as there is no decep-
tion in this case.
|The above is from the Boston Transcript
and the wonder to us is, how the Transcript
can suppose Prof. Agassiz qualified to tell how
it got there any more than John Doyle, the
blacksmith. This is not a question of zoolo-
gy, botany, or geology, but one relating to an
antique metal vessel perhaps made by [Tubal?]
Cain, the first inhabitant of Dorchester.
It'd be quite some work for someone to somehow place a metal vessel into solid rock 15 feet below the surface without the workers noticing anything
odd the next morning, or whenever. Impossible, I would think. But it was either that, or I suppose the workers were lying and/or the whole thing was
made up, short of accepting it as evidence of earlier civilization.
Another article can be found based on an 1820 issue of
The American Journal of Science and Arts. A
Google Search
reveals info on the publication, including
this article:
Extensive quarrying was done near the city of Aixen -Provence, France between 1786 and 1788, to provide the large quantities of limestone
needed for the rebuilding of the Palace of Justice.
In the quarry from which the limestone was taken, the rock strata were separated from each other by layers of sand and clay, and by the time the
workmen had removed 11 layers of rock they had found they had reached a depth of some 40 feet or 50 feet from the original level of the area.
Beneath the 11th layer of limestone they came to a bed of sand and began to remove it to get at the rock underneath. In the sand they found the stumps
of stone pillars and fragments of half worked rock, the same stone and rock that they themselves had been excavating.
They dug further and found coins, the petrified wooden handles of hammers, and pieces of other petrified wooden tools. Finally they came to a large
wooden board, seven or eight feet long and an inch thick. As was the case with the wooden tools, it had also been petrified into a form of agate and
it had been broken into pieces.
When the pieces were reassembled, the workmen saw before them a quarryman's board of exactly the same kind they themselves used, worn in just the
same way as their own boards were, with rounded, edges.
How a stonemason's yard equipped with the kind of tools used in France in the late 18th century, had come to be buried 50 feet deep under layer of
sand and limestone 300 million years old is a mystery even more vexing today than at the time of the original discovery.
For we now know, thanks to advances in geological and anthropological dating, that such a thing is absolutely impossible. And yet it does seem to have
happened.
(The American Journal of Science and Arts, 1:145-46, 1820)
Note that the wood was described as petrified, which means it wasn't exactly freshly-cut wood planted there the day before. So I guess the
only logical conclusion is that all of the workers were lying and made it all up, or didn't have the sense to tell normal wood from rock wood.
Right?
I'm sure you guys know that I could go on with many such reports, as you've probably seen many of them already. A list of a number of similar
occurences can be found
here, for example.
I can understand a desire for more information, but I can't imagine many ways that objects can be planted into so much solid rock, or
petrified, except that they naturally came to such. Nor do I see any purpose, use, or
evidence in calling
all of these reports
outright lies and frauds. Sure, there are bound to be people trying to make some quick cash, but again, I can't many ways in which objects can be
placed within solid rock, or artificially petrified into rock, and have no reason to assume every report and article a lie. What problem would there
be with admitting something to just be unexplained?
[edit on 2-1-2006 by bsbray11]
but what about the thing were miners found this frog
embedded in rock and was alive? this is weird so how did that stuff get there and why isnt other stuff found?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
