The Postcard
A postcard that was published by E. Mack of King Henry's Road, Hampstead, London. The artwork is of unusually poor quality for comic cards of the day.
The card was posted in Rhyl using a ½d. stamp on Thursday the 10th. August 1916 to:
Miss L. Peak,
3/27 Edward Street Parade,
Birmingham.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Lil,
Having a fine time in
Rhyl.
Expect to be home
Friday midnight.
The card reminds you
of what?
From Tom xxxx"
The Sinking of the Kasagi
So what else happened on the day that Tom posted the card?
Well, on the 10th. August 1916, the Japanese cruiser Kasagi sank after running aground in the Tsugaru Strait.
'The Battle of the Somme'
Also on that day, the official British documentary propaganda film The Battle of the Somme premièred in London.
In the first six weeks of general release, 20 million people viewed it.
Addie L. Ballou
The 10th. August 1916 also marked the death of the American poet activist Addie L. Ballou.
Addie, who was born in 1838, was a leading advocate for women's suffrage, temperance and prison reform. She was also the author of poetry collections Driftwood and The Padre’s Dream and Other Poems.
Charles Dawson
The day also marked the death of Charles Dawson, British amateur archaeologist.
Charles, who was born on the 11th. July 1864 in Preston, Lancashire, was charged with fraud on several archaeological discoveries, including the Piltdown Man.
Charles was a British amateur archaeologist who claimed to have made a number of archaeological and palaeontological discoveries that were later exposed to be frauds. These forgeries included the Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus Dawsoni), a unique set of bones that he claimed to have found in 1912 in Sussex.
Many technological methods such as fluorine testing indicate that this discovery was a hoax, and Dawson, the only one with the skill and knowledge to generate this forgery, was a major suspect.
The eldest of three sons, Dawson moved with his family from Preston, Lancashire, to Hastings, Sussex, when he was still very young. He initially studied law, in order to become his father's apprentice, and then pursued a hobby of collecting and studying fossils.
Dawson made a number of seemingly important fossil finds. Amongst these were teeth from a previously unknown species of mammal, later named Plagiaulax Dawsoni in his honour.
Other Dawson discoveries were three new species of dinosaur, one later named Iguanodon Dawsoni; and a new form of fossil plant, Salaginella Dawsoni.
In appreciation for Charles' donation of fossils, the Natural History Museum awarded him the title of "Honorary Collector".
In 1885, he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society as a result of his numerous discoveries. He was then elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1895. He was now Charles Dawson F.G.S., F.S.A at the age of 31, without a university degree to his name.
-- Chales Dawson's Alleged Discoveries
In 1889, Dawson was a co-founder of the Hastings and St. Leonards Museum Association, one of the first voluntary museum friends' groups organised in Great Britain.
Dawson worked on a voluntary basis as a member of the Museum Committee, in charge of the acquisition of artifacts and historical documents.
His interest in archaeology developed, and he had an uncanny knack for making spectacular discoveries, leading The Sussex Daily News to name him the "Wizard of Sussex".
In 1893, Dawson investigated a curious flint mine full of prehistoric, Roman and medieval artifacts in the Lavant Caves, near Chichester, and probed two tunnels beneath Hastings Castle.
In the same year, he presented the British Museum with a Roman statuette from Beauport Park that was made, uniquely for the period, of cast iron. Other discoveries followed, including a strange form of hafted Neolithic stone axe and a well-preserved ancient timber boat.
Charles analysed ancient quarries, re-examined the Bayeux Tapestry, and produced the first conclusive study of Hastings Castle. He later found fake evidence for the final phases of Roman occupation in Britain at Pevensey Castle in Sussex.
Investigating unusual elements of the natural world, Dawson presented a petrified toad inside a flint nodule, discovered a large supply of natural gas at Heathfield in East Sussex, reported on a sea-serpent in the English Channel, observed a new species of human, and found a strange goldfish/carp hybrid.
It was even reported that he was experimenting with phosphorescent bullets as a hindrance to Zeppelin attacks on London during the Great War.
-- Piltdown Man
Dawson's most famous "find" was the 1912 discovery of the Piltdown Man, which was billed as the "missing link" between humans and other great apes. Following his death in 1916, no further "discoveries" were made at Piltdown.
Questions about the Piltdown find were raised from the beginning, first by Arthur Keith, but also by palaeontologists and anatomists from the United States and Europe.
Defence of the validity of the fossils was led by Arthur Smith Woodward at the Natural History Museum in London. The debate was rancorous at times, and the response to those disputing the finds often became personally abusive.
Challenges to Piltdown Man arose again in the 1920s, but were again dismissed.
-- Posthumous Analysis
In 1949, further questions were raised about the Piltdown Man and its authenticity, which led in 1953 to the conclusive demonstration that Piltdown was a hoax.
Since then, a number of Dawson's other finds have also been shown to be forged or planted.
In 2003, Miles Russell of Bournemouth University published the results of his investigation into Dawson's antiquarian collection, and concluded that at least 38 specimens were clear fakes.
Russell has noted that:
"Dawson's whole academic career appears
to have been one built upon deceit, sleight
of hand, fraud and deception, the ultimate
gain being international recognition."
Among these were the teeth of a reptile/mammal hybrid, Plagiaulax Dawsoni, purportedly "found" in 1891; the creature's teeth had been filed down in the same way that the teeth of Piltdown Man were to be some 20 years later).
Other 'finds' included:
-- The so-called "shadow figures" on the walls
of Hastings Castle
-- A unique hafted stone axe
-- The Bexhill boat (a hybrid seafaring vessel)
-- The Pevensey bricks (allegedly the latest
datable "finds" from Roman Britain)
-- The contents of the Lavant Caves (a fraudulent
"flint mine"
-- The Beauport Park "Roman" statuette (a
hybrid iron object)
-- The Bulverhythe hammer (shaped with an
iron knife in the same way as the Piltdown
elephant bone implement was later shaped)
-- A fraudulent "Chinese" bronze vase
-- The Brighton "toad in the hole" (a toad
entombed within a flint nodule)
-- The English Channel sea serpent
-- The Uckfield horseshoe (another hybrid
iron object)
-- The Lewes prick spur.
Of Dawson's antiquarian publications, most demonstrate evidence of plagiarism, or at least naive referencing. As Russell wrote:
"Piltdown was not a 'one-off' hoax,
more the culmination of a life's work."
Dawson claimed to have discovered a collection of fossils that had been dug up in Piltdown, Sussex, including an ape-like jawbone and a human-like skull.
However, after his death, it was proven that the remains were evidently forged. For years, the creator of these remains was unknown, though it was then determined, through a meticulous inspection of his finds and collections, that Charles Dawson was most likely responsible for this forgery.
-- Unmasking the Hoax
As more human fossils were discovered, it appeared that they had little in common with the Piltdown Man. The Piltdown Man was re-examined through new, rigorous technological methods which ultimately uncovered the hoax.
A fluoride-based test, a chemical test that dates fossils by the amount of fluorine that buried bones absorb from the soil, was used to date the Piltdown remains. This test, validated by a nitrogen-based test, dated the skull to not more than 50,000 years old, far more recent than Dawson proposed, and dated the jawbone to decades old.
This meant that the Piltdown Man could not have been an ancestor of modern humans. Furthermore, chemical tests displayed that the fossils had been artificially stained by iron and chromium to appear medieval.
Also, CT scans used to analyzed the inside of the bones indicated that many bones were loaded with gravel and were then sealed with putty.
Furthermore, X-rays indicate that the teeth have been flattened by filing or grinding in order to appear like human teeth.
Lastly, in 2016, a team of British researchers used DNA studies to provide added evidence for the provenance of Piltdown Man. It was determined that the Piltdown I jawbone and the Piltdown II molar tooth came from a single orangutan, and the cranial bones came from primitive humans.
Analyses of the material also exhibited the forger's lack of professional training, as the materials had fractured bones, putty that had set too fast, and cracked teeth.
-- Revealing the Forger
Most agree that the Piltdown Man was forged by a single individual, and that this was most probably Charles Dawson. Dawson was the suspected perpetrator in this hoax for many reasons.
First, Dawson had a previous history of deception: he was responsible for about 38 forgeries, he had plagiarized a historical account of Hastings Castle, and had pretended to act on behalf of the Sussex Archeological Society. However, most people were unaware of this.
Second, he was majorly involved in the Piltdown findings. He initiated the story of the Piltdown finds, and was the one who contacted Woodward about them. He was the sole person to have seen the Piltdown II site, and never disclosed the facts about this site.
Third, the fact that the techniques used to create both Piltdown I and Piltdown II were so similar suggests a single forger.
Fourth, Dawson was the only person present at every discovery; nothing was ever discovered at the site when he was not physically present, and no other fossils were subsequently found after he had died.
Fifth, not only did he have access to the museum and antiquarian shops that carried these objects, he was also a popular collector, a prolific networker, and knew what the British scientific community expected in a missing link between apes and humans.
It has been suggested that Dawson's motive for this forgery had been his strong desire for scientific recognition, and to join the archeological Royal Society.
Between 1883 and 1909, Dawson wrote 50 publications, though none were important enough to elevate his career. In 1909, he wrote a letter to Smith Woodward, with an unhappy heart, saying that he wanted to uncover a significant discovery, though he never seemed to come across one.
Just six weeks later, Dawson's wife wrote a letter to the Home Secretary, pleading on behalf of Dawson's expertise.
Sorrowful that he never unearthed a major discovery, he created the Piltdown Man which resulted in his election to the Royal Society.
Although there is not a substantial amount of evidence, many believe that he received aid from other experts such as Teilhard de Chardin, who worked with Dawson on early excavations, and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of the Department at the Natural History Museum, a friend of Dawson, and co-author of the announcement of Piltdown II.
-- The Death of Charles Dawson
Charles died at the young age of 52 from pernicious amaemia on the 10th. August 1916 in Lewes, Sussex. He died without receiving a knighthood.
John J. Loud
The 10th. August 1916 also marked the death of John J. Loud.
John, who was born in 1844, was an American entrepreneur, and designer of the ballpoint pen.
Keenly interested in inventing, on the 30th. October 1888, Loud obtained the first patent for a ballpoint pen when attempting to make a writing instrument that would be able to write on leather products, which then-common fountain pens could not.
Loud's pen had a small rotating steel ball, held in place by a socket. In the patent, he noted:
"My invention consists of an improved
reservoir or fountain pen, especially
useful, among other purposes, for
marking on rough surfaces such as
wood, coarse wrapping paper, and
other articles where an ordinary pen
could not be used."
However, although his invention could indeed be used to mark rough surfaces such as leather, as he had originally intended, it proved to be too coarse for letter-writing.
With no commercial viability, the potential of Loud's invention went unexploited, and the patent eventually lapsed.
The modern ballpoint pen as we know it today was patented 50 years later in 1938 by László Bíró, 22 years after Loud's death.
Since László Bíró's patent, over 100 billion ballpoint pens have been sold worldwide. 100 billion pens laid end to end would form a line 15 million kilometres long; it would encircle the earth 374 times. That's a lot of pens!