290 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



been found, and which formed a very good substitute for the flints of 

 north Europe. This was the first instance in which, so far as he 

 knew, such stone implements had been found in India in situ. True 

 celts, of a totally different type and much higher finish, and in every 

 respect identical with those found in Scotland and Ireland, had been 

 met with in large numbers in Central India, but never actually imbedded 

 in any deposits. They were invariably found under holy trees or in 

 sacred places, and were objects of reverence and worship to the people, 

 who could give no information as to the source from which they had 

 been originally gathered together. 



/ ^j C3 



Those now on the table had been collected partly by himself, from 

 a ferruginous lateritic gravel-bed, which extended irregularly over a 

 very large area west of Madras. In places, this was at least fifteen 

 feet below the surface, cut through by streams, and in one such place, 

 from which some of the specimens on the table were procured, there 

 stood an old ruined pagoda on the surface, evidencing that, at least 

 at the time of its construction, that surface was a permanent one. 

 This bed of gravel was in many places exposed on the surface, and 

 had been partially denuded ; and it was in such localities, where these 

 implements had been washed out of the bed, and lay strewed on the 

 surface, that they were found most plentifully. 



Mr. Oldham remarked on the great interest attaching to such a 

 discovery, and on the probable age of the deposit in which they oc- 

 curred. Another point of interest connected with the history of 

 such implements was the remarkable fact that while, scattered in 

 abundance over the districts where they occurred, were noble remains 

 of what would by many be called Druidical character- circles of large 

 standing stones, cromlechs, kistvaens, often of large size and well 

 preserved, all of which were traditionally referred to the Karumbers, 

 a race of which there yet existed traces in the hills, still, all the weap- 

 ons and implements of every kind found in these stone structures, 

 were invariably of iron. No information whatever regarding these 

 stone implements could be obtained from the peasantry, who had been 

 quite unaware of their existence. Jour, of the Asiatic Society of 

 ^Bengal. 



Human Fossils from Brazil. Dr. Lund, a Danish naturalist, has 

 recently published an account of cave explorations in Brazil. He 

 states, that he found human fossils in eight different localities, all 

 bearing marks of geological antiquity, intermixed with those of nu- 

 merous extinct animals. In the province of Minas Geras he found 

 human skeletons among the remains of 44 species of extinct an-. 

 inuils, among which was a fossil horse. In a cave on the borders 

 of a lake called Lago Santa, he again collected multifarious human 

 bones in the same condition as those of the extinct animals, and he 

 considers that their geological relations unite to prove that they 

 were entombed in their present position long before the formation of 

 the lake on whose borders the cave is situated ; leaving thus no doubt 

 of their coexistence in life and their association in death. With 

 regard to the race to which these human fossils belong, Dr. Lund 

 observes that the form of the skull differs in no respect from the 

 acknowledged American type. 



New Discoveries respecting the Ancient Lake Habitations of En- 



