i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



this last specimen several flint blades, one on each shoulder and 

 one resting on the top of the head. It was 8'40 metres below the 

 original floor. 



Of the three skeletons discovered in February, 1892, Mr. 

 Vaughan Jennings gave a description in an article to which we 

 will refer later on. They also were found in the fifth cave, but a 

 very little further within its depths than those of 1884, and were 

 first noticed by workmen who were blasting and hewing the face 

 of the cliff for stone. During this work they gradually destroyed 

 the sides of the high cleft or cave, and in removing the hard earth 

 that filled its floor to some eight or ten feet in depth, at the dis- 

 tance of about twenty-five metres from its original entrance, they 

 came upon a skull which, unfortunately, was broken by the blow 

 from a man's pickaxe, or, as some saj^ by the energetic digging of 

 one of Abbo's young sons with the iron instrument used for sink- 

 ing holes for blasting. From that moment, but not with sufficient 

 care, the skeletons, lying side by side, were unearthed and rapidly 

 robbed of the flints and ornaments found about them, with the re- 

 sult that none can be certain in what position Abbo found them. 

 At first only two were entirely visible those of a man and a 

 woman but soon a third, that of a youth, lying between the two, 

 came to light. They lay seven metres and a half below the origi- 

 nal floor. All are of great size ; the skulls being broken and the 

 skeletons half in the earth, exact measurement of the height was 

 very diflficult at the time ; but both then and since the skulls have 

 been pieced together we have managed to take some sort of meas- 

 urement, showing the biggest skeleton, from the crown of the 

 skull to the heel, to be six feet ten inches and a half,* and the 

 other two about six feet six inches and a half. If, then, we allow 

 for the shrinking of the tendons and for the flesh on the heels 

 and head, the man must have stood about seven feet four inches, 

 and the others, to whom the remaining skeletons belonged, about 

 seven feet and half an inch at most. No child was found, as 

 was erroneously stated by a newspaper. The skulls are of un- 

 usual size and thickness, the frontal bone being at least a quarter 

 of an inch thick, and the parietal and occipital bones fully three 

 quarters of an inch. The occiput in one of them is enormous, and 

 is very much larger and out of proportion to the rest of the cra- 

 nium, being expanded lengthwise, while in another it is the parie- 

 tal bones which exhibit excessive extension. The orbital cavities 

 are unusually large and curiously curved up at the outer corners. 

 The bones, too, are of great thickness ; they are, however, most 

 friable ; to the slightest touch many of them will crumble, and all 



* M. Adolphe Megret, by his usual calculation, makes the height of the living man to 

 have been 2- 144 metres, or al)out seven feet and half an inch. 



