288 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



" This skull," says Mr. Busk, "as were most of the bones with which 

 it was accompanied, was encased in a very hard gray stalagmitic 

 crust, in some parts several inches thick, and evidently the result of 

 very long and slow deposition. But when this was removed, the bone 

 stood out as fresh to all appearance as if it had been carefully macer- 

 ated and cleaned. It is a small, roundish, symmetrical cranium; but 

 we have not yet so critically compared it as to allow of any definite 

 opinion being given on the present occasion as to its nearest probable 

 affinities. In one respect it is of extreme interest, from its being asso- 

 ciated with several leg bones presenting the peculiar compressed form 

 above adverted to, and among which one, from the condition of the 

 bone itself and the exact similarity of the calcareous incrustation upon 

 it, most probably belongs to the same individual. We thus appear to 

 be furnished with a clue to the cranial conformation of the ' sharp- 

 shinned ' or platycncmic race, a point of considerable importance." 1 



In the second collection, there were besides several quadrupedal 

 bones the greater part of a human cranium, and a lower jaw not belong- 

 ing to it. " This cranium,' 1 says Mr. Busk, ' ' resembles in all essential 

 particulars, including its great thickness, the far-famed Neanderthal 

 skull ; but, in many respects, it is of infinitely higher value than that 

 much-disputed relic, inasmuch as it retains the entire occipital re- 

 gion including the hinder margin of foramen magnum, great part of 

 the base, the whole of one temporal bone (thus giving the precise 

 situation of the auditory opening), and nearly the entire face, includ- 

 ing the. upper jaw, with most of the much and curiously-worn teeth. 

 As it is precisely these parts that arc wanting in the Neanderthal cal- 

 varium, of which the present is, in other respects, almost an exact 

 counterpart, the value of this cranium in the study of priscan man can 

 not be rated too high. Its discovery also adds immensely to the scien- 

 tific value of the Neanderthal specimen, if only as showing that the 

 latter docs not represent, as many have hitherto supposed, a mere 

 individual peculiarity, but that it may hive been characteristic of 

 a race extending from the Rhine to the Pillars of Hercules. The 

 animal bones associated with this skull, though not themselves of an 

 extinct species, yet belong to one (Ibex) whose remains occur very 

 abundantly throughout the Rock in the oldest breccia, in which are 

 also contained those of at least one, if not of two, wholly extinct 

 species of Rhinoceros, and of several other animals which are extinct 

 so far as Europe is concerned." 



Further Human Remains from Abbeville, France. The alleged 

 discovery in 18G3, by M. Perthes, of a portion of a human jaw-bone, in a 

 gravel bed (probably belonging to the drift period), and located near 

 Abbeville, France, at a quarry known as " Moulin-Quignon," has, as 

 our readers are doubtless well aware, excited much-discussion among 

 scientists and theologians, both in Europe and fliis country (see An- 

 nual of Scientific Discovery, 1804, p. 2;)2). The discussions have also 

 invested the quarry in question with great interest ; and a sharp look- 

 out has been kept ever since by naturalists in the hope of further dis- 

 coveries. Thi.> hope has been at last realized. On April 2-1, 1864, M. 

 Perthes and Dr. Dubois of Abbeville, found in one of the quarry beds, 

 a portion of a human sacrum, fragments of a cranium, and human molar 

 teeth ; on the 1st of May they obtained, on digging, further remains ; 



