330 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



sented by Mr. M'Connell to the Smithsonian Institution, by 

 which it was transferred to the Army Medical Museum. 



These he considers to be of much importance, since, until 

 very recently, our knowledge of the early condition of the 

 human race was extremely slight in any part of the world; 

 and the California skull takes us at least beyond the glacier 

 period, and, as Dr. Schmidt believes, is the very oldest monu- 

 ment of the human race in existence. He thinks that the ice 

 period in America occurred simultaneously with that in Eu- 

 rope, and that consequently the primitive inhabitants of Cali- 

 fornia must have lived even before those of the valley of the 

 Somme and of the Neander. 



The case, however, is complicated by the high condition 

 of development of the California skull ; this at least shows 

 that the race must have experienced a considerable develop- 

 ment at that time, while the contemporary implements are 

 oftenmet with in California, exhibiting a great deal of skill 

 in their manufacture. Archiv fur Anthropologies ', August, 

 259. 



PREHISTORIC REMAINS IN WYOMING. 



According to Dr. Leidy, the plains and ravines of the 

 buttes, and the lower mounds at the base of the larger 

 buttes, near Fort Bridger, in Wyoming, are thickly strewn 

 with stone fragments, sharply fractured in such a manner as 

 to have the appearance of artificial origin. Mingled with 

 them are many implements of the rudest construction, while 

 there are some of the finest finish. Between these and the 

 stone sprawls, of less doubtful or natural origin, there occurs 

 every variety of form, so as to render it impossible to say 

 where nature ceased her labors, and where primitive man 

 commenced his. 



The material of these splintered stones consists of jaspers, 

 quartzites, some of the softer rocks of the buttes, and less 

 frequently of black flint, the last probably transported by 

 human agency from the locality of its natural occurrence, as 

 it is only known to occur in position in the tertiary strata of 

 Henry's Fork of Green River. In visiting a party of Indians 

 encamped near Fort Bridger, Professor Leidy informs us that 

 the only stone implement found among them was one called 

 the teshoa, obtained from a quartzite boulder by a single smart 



