174 ORIGINAL AETICLES. 



quire whether a similar conformation, or one approaching it, has been 

 observed in other instances of ancient or modern skulls, but without 

 success. He describes and figures a brachycephalic cranium from Plau 

 (PL V., fig. 8), in which there is a considerable protuberance of the 

 supra-orbital ridges, but not to anything like the extent of that pre- 

 sented in the Neanderthal skull. We have added figures taken from 

 the cranium of a Red Indian, which was procured from an ancient 

 burial-place in Tennessee, and in which, of all the crania in our pos- 

 session, the supraorbital prominence is most marked (PL V., figs. 

 1 and 2). This skull also affords a striking instance of the existence of 

 irregular depressions of the same nature as those which are seen, more 

 especially on the right side, in the Neanderthal cranium. 



To these figures we have also added others of some very ancient fos- 

 silized crania from different localities, with the view, simply, of show- 

 ing that considerable diversities of form existed among even the ear- 

 liest races of mankind inhabiting the "West of Europe. These are : 1 .* 

 The figure of a cranium discovered in a submarine, or rather subterra- 

 nean peat bog or forest, 30 feet below the present level of the sea, at 

 Sennen, near the Land's End, Cornwall, for which we are indebted to 

 Mr. Jonathan Couch, through the kindness of Prof. Wariugton Smyth. 

 This cranium, it may be remarked, bears some resemblance to the Engis 

 cranium of Dr. Schmerling.f 



2. A cranium, probably of a female, found, together with less per- 

 fect skulls and numerous other bones belonging to six or seven indivi- 

 duals of different ages, from 60 or 70 down to 3 or 4 years, in a narrow 

 fissure in a limestone quarry at Mewslade in Glamorganshire, and not 

 improbably of the same period as the bones of animals, &c, found in 

 the neighbouring caverns in Gower, which have been described by Dr. 

 Falconer and others. This cranium is obviously of a wholly distinct 

 type from that of the others, though still in some respects peculiar. In 

 the Museum of the College of Surgeons are several crania taken from an 

 ancient (British ?) burial-place in Anglesea, in which the same confor- 

 mation exists. And it also resembles very closely a cranium found deep 

 in an ancient peat-bed in Northamptonshire, which has been placed in 

 our hands by Mr. Prestwich, who regards it as belonging to a very re- 

 mote period. 



3. A small portion of another cranium, J found in a limestone quarry 

 near Plymouth, at a depth of about six feet below the present turf, 

 exhibits a different form ; it is chiefly remarkable for the retreating 

 forehead and the projection, without much thickening, of the supra- 

 orbital ridges, the margin of the orbit being very acute. 



4. In the human skull discovered by Dr. Schmerling in the Cavern 

 of Engis, and which, we believe, is regarded by Sir Charles Lyell as 

 undoubtedly cotemporary with the cave Elephant, Rhinoceros, and 

 Carnivora, there is some reason, from the drawing of the longitudi- 



Pl. V., fig. 9. f PI. V., figs. 3, 4. i PL V., fig. 6 and 7. 



