A curiosity which astonishes scientists and puzzles them to account for is now on exhibition in Gould’s cabinet at Mill City. It is a perfectly formed hand, which apparently belonged to a boy about fourteen years of age. The hand is open, the fingers being slightly bent toward the palm, on which the thumb rests. The back of the hand seems to have been crushed or decomposed before it was petrified, but the palm, thumb and fingers are perfect. We were informed it was found at the sulphur beds near Rabbit Hole, by one of the men employed in shoveling crude sulphur into the refining retort, and is supposed to have been imbedded in the sulphur bank for ages. The fingers are comparatively short, a fact which indicates that it did not belong to an Indian, as the red men’s fingers are generally longer than those of whites; but the thumb is rather longer than the average. To what race the owner of the hand belongs, and how and when it was imbedded in the sulphur, will probably ever remain unknown, unless some eminent scientists should investigate the hand and the sulphur bank where it was found and explain these mysteries.–Winnemucca (Nev.) Silver State.
Most of the online references to “petrified hand” mention one of the Harry Potter movies or the Dr Who episode “The Hand of Fear.” “Eldrad must live!” I think my friend and I walked around school for two weeks repeating that phrase with every possible inflection.
As for the hand itself, well, I have no idea what it is all about, or where it went. Perhaps it was a precursor to this mammoth find?