The first evidence to be certain of in a case of this kind is doubtless
that deducible from the circumstances attending the discovery itself,
and upon it, in the present instance, for the reason that the Stone has
been cleaned, and all vestiges of the soil which originally clung to it
unfortunately removed, we must chiefly depend.
The fact that several persons saw the first fragment immediately after
it left Hansell's hands, throws back the period of possible doubt as
to its authenticity to the nine years of his ownership, while the
remarkable skill and archæological knowledge necessary to forge such
a stone place him as the possible maker of the carvings above the
slightest suspicion. The motive of gain must be eliminated from the
possibilities of the case, when we consider the trifling sum received
by Hansell for the relics, and the fact that the small piece was
presented by him to the present owner, while the supposition that he
could have been in collusion with any person unknown for the purpose
of a practical joke is rendered impossible by his own honest simplicity
and the conduct of his family and friends throughout. Again, no one
clever enough to have made the relic could have been a neighbor of
Hansell's and remained unknown or unsuspected, and it is quite absurd
to suppose that some one from a distance, having entrusted the fortunes
of so elaborate a practical joke to the fragments of this small stone,
would have "planted" the results of his labor in Buckingham Township,
Bucks County, where the chances were very strongly against its being
brought to the notice of archæologists, even if discovered.