NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 265 



wall of the glenoid cavity is thick and unusually convex. Instead of shelving 

 backwards and upwards from the articular eminence, as is usually the case, 

 particularly, as I am inclined to think, in long heads, it rises abruptly and 

 almost perpendicularly, giving the fossa somewhat the appearance presented 

 by this cavity in the carnivora, and indicating powerful up and down move- 

 ments of the lower jaw, with diminished lateral action. The lateral motion of 

 the jaw must have been still more restrained by the backward inclination of 

 the internal end of the inferior root of the zygoma. The condyle adapted to 

 such a fossa must have been large and heavy, with a correspondingly short 

 and thick neck. Such characters indicate a heavy, square jaw, with short 

 rami and a flattened or retracted symphysis menti. Corresponding with this, 

 as the head is brachykephalic, the superior maxilla must have been heavy and 

 flat and the malar bones prominent. Reasoning thus we may infer from the 

 glenoid cavity that the face of this skull partook of the Tschudic or even ap- 

 proximated the Mongolian form. 



It is, perhaps, impossible to say positively whether this skull be a very old 

 or quite a modem one. A knowledge of the precise epoch to which it should 

 be referred, would assist somewhat in the determination of its nationality. I 

 have already said that from its appearance it can scarcely be regarded as an 

 ancient skull. Yet the appearance and degree of density of bones are by no 

 means reliable criteria of their age ; for it is well known that bones of the 

 same age exhibit great dissimilarity in these respects, according to the location 

 in which they have been deposited, according as they have been buried in 

 the ground, deposited in caverns, submerged in water, or freely exposed upon 

 the surface of the earth to air and light. The quantity and quality of the 

 mineral and saline matters contained in the water in which such bones may 

 have been placed, the nature of the soil in which they may have been inhumed, 

 and other circumstances, are known to exert, in the course of time, peculiar 

 changes in both the animal and earthy matter. But the data by which to 

 determine with certainty the time required to produce such changes are want- 

 ing. Equally recent bones deposited in the same cave at the same time often 

 exhibit very different appearances after the lapse of many years. And yet the 

 circumstances of location, and the absence or presence of animal matter, are 

 the only, and, it must be confessed, very unreliable criteria by which to de- 

 termine the age of bony remains. A piece of the Jerusalem skull pressed 

 against the tongue adheres slightly. A small fragment was pulverized, 

 treated with ether, washed and thoroughly dried by exposure to a gentle heat. 

 One drachm of the bone thus treated was macerated in a mixture consisting of 

 three parts water and two parts hydrochloric acid. In eleven hours it 

 was thoroughly dissolved, the solution being accompanied at first with a 

 moderately active liberation of carbonic acid gas. A few pellicles of a gelatin- 

 ous matter that had collected upon the surface of the liquid were removed 

 and carefully dried. They weighed 11 grains. Sulphuric acid was then added 

 to the liquid drop by drop until there was no longer any precipitation of lime. 

 The supernatant liquid was poured off, and the sulphate of lime effectually dried 

 by exposure to the sun and afterwards to the heat of an oven. It weighed 48 

 grains. One grain of the original weight was thus lost in the process. From 

 this rough analysis it will be seen that the bones composing the skull under 

 consideration contain a less percentage of animal and a greater percentage of 

 calcareous matter than is contained in decidedly recent bones, A piece of an 

 ancient Burgundian skull, reported to be some 2000 years old, a fragment of 

 the skull of an ancient Roman, ;found in the tomb on the road between Cumse 

 and the ruins of Baise, and a fragment of the skull of a young aboriginal female 

 taken from an ancient tomb at Ticul in Yucatan, were subjected to the same 

 analytical process. They were found to consist almost wholly of earthy matter. 

 The animal matter had almost entirely disappeared. These bones were dis- 

 solved in a much less time than the piece from the Jerusalem skull, and their 

 solution gave rise to a very active formation and escape of gas. 



1859.] 



