242 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



evidences of ancient workings of these mines in the form of 

 shafts now entirely filled up with earth', although it is prob- 

 able that these do not antedate the period of the occupation' 

 of the country by the Spaniards. 



PRE-HISTORIC MODES OF SEPULTURE. 



In a paper by Mr. Petrie on ancient modes of sepulture in 

 the Orkneys, presented to the British Association, he states 

 that sepulchral mounds were very frequent there, generally 

 on elevations. The skeletons were often discovered in a sit- 

 ting posture. Mr. Flower considered this an interesting an- 

 nouncement, as it had been observed in every country in 

 Europe, as well as in Peru, India, and Africa. Herodotus, in 

 his account of the Autochthones, a people who lived in the 

 vicinity of what is now called Tunis, says that they always 

 placed their dying friends in a sitting posture to await their 

 last hour ; and it seems that they so buried their dead. In 

 reference to this, it may be remarked that among the North 

 American Indians it was generally customary to dig the 

 graves on the southern slope of a hill, and to bury the dead 

 in a sitting posture, with their faces toward the south. 12 

 A, August 24, 1871, 335. 



PLATYCNEMIC SKELETONS IN" THE DENBIGHSHIRE CAYES. 



Mr. Boyd Dawkins, an expert in such matters, has lately 

 discovered some interesting pre-historic caves, of the neolith- 

 ic period, in Denbighshire, England. One of these extended 

 horizontally into the rock, and was blocked up with earth and 

 large masses of stone, and contained numerous broken bones 

 of animals that had been eaten, such as the dog, fox, badger, 

 horned sheep, Celtic short-horn, roe, stag, horse, wild boar, 

 domestic hog, etc. With these were associated a number of 

 polished stone instruments and scrapers, fragments of pottery, 

 etc., and a number of human skeletons, which appeared to 

 have been buried originally in a sitting posture, varying in 

 age from infancy upward. 



The most interesting peculiarity of these skeletons con- 

 sisted in the fact of their possessing the peculiar flattened 

 conditions of the forward portion of the shin now known 

 as the platycnemic, and found in great development in our 

 mound-builders, according to Professor Wynian. The cranial 



