1899.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 3 



Ashbiirner, Dr. Jaines Blake and others, of whom the speaker is 

 the only present survivor. 



The skull was then in the condition in which it Avas first ob- 

 tained, except that a portion of the gravel which had originally 

 covered the whole of it had been removed by "Messrs. ^lattison 

 and Scribner (the finder and first receiver) from the anterior dome 

 and right side of the cranium. The rest of it was still filled or 

 covered by a hard mass of small gravel stones cemented together 

 by iron oxide and calcareous cement, so that a tool was necessary 

 to separate or remove the pebbles and other particles of which the 

 conglomerate was made up. These pebbles were obviously water- 

 worn, and mixed with them were particles of other human bones," 

 a perforated shell ornament or bead of small size and the fossilized 

 remains of a thin and fragile snail shell, recognizable as the still 

 existing Helix (Epiphragmophora) morvionum. 



It was the speaker's opinion that by no artificial agency could such 

 a conglomerate have been assembled about a recent skull, and the 

 sight of it was sufficient proof of the fact to any reasonable person. 

 Unfortunately, however, no photographs were taken of the 

 specimen in this condition, or at least none are recorded ; and when 

 it was placed in the hands of the celebrated anatomist. Dr. Jeffries 

 Wyman, the encrusting material was removed in order that the 

 characters of the skull should be determined. The specimen is 

 now in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and it is probable 

 that part of the matrix is also preserved there. At all events the 

 recollection of the speaker was clear that the mass of the hard 

 incrusting conglomerate was composed of small pebbles, with some 

 ferruginous matter, entirely unlike the calcareous deposits from 

 calciferous water in caves. The mass of the material was not 

 limy, but gravel; in all essentials resembling the material taken 

 from the gravel beds under the lava, of which specimens were at 

 hand for comparison. Subsequent examination showed that the 

 skull had been violently fractured and that portions of bones 

 of the extremities and sternum had been crowded into its inter- 

 stices with the gravel. It was found among a lot of wood also 

 included in the gravel, as if the prehistoric stream in flood had 

 washed away part of an ancient graveyard and crushed the bones 

 and timber into a miscellaneous heap of debris, left behind, as the 

 watei's fell. 



If, as has been intimated, the skull had been taken from some 

 cave where the present Indians interred their dead, and where 

 remains had been gradually covered with a stalagmitic crust, how 

 is the peculiar agglomeration to be explained ? 



In the speaker's opinion, the attempts on the part of unscientific 



* Part of which from their size must have belonged to another iadividual. 



