Mr. Jones, welcome back. I hope that your third adventure regarding the Crystal Skulls has left you in good shape.
What's interesting about that article is, as you said yourself, who is the "expert?" The author has no problem whipping out MacDonald, Hutchinson, and Braid. I wonder why the reticence. This article has the look of what used to be like an AP or UPI piece - something that came across the wire and was published nationally, without specific attribution. I have no idea how they were transmitting stuff or distributing stuff like this in 1912. however, if the Duluth News Tribune published it on that date, it wouldn't surprise me to find that other newspapers published the same article, edited differently perhaps, on a similar date.
One wonders if the author himself was the expert in question !