Aboriginal Antiquities fo^md at Montreal. 367 



more than two feet of soil, the pressure of which was in itself in- 

 sufficient to have occasioned the change of form. The skull, 

 moreover, was entirely filled with the fine sand in which it was 

 embedded. If, therefore, we conceive of the body .lying interred 

 under this slisfht coverino- of soil until all the tissues and brain 

 had disappeared, and the infiltration of fine sand had filled up the 

 hollow brain-case ; and then, while the bones were still replete 

 with the animal matter, and softened by being filled with moist 

 sand and embedded in the same, if some considerable additional 

 pressure, such as the erection of a heavy structure, or the sudden 

 accumulation of any weighty mass, took place over the grave, the 

 internal sand would present sufficient resistance to the superin- 

 cumbent weight, applied by nearly equal pressure on all sides, to 

 prevent the crushing of the skull or the disruption of the bones, 

 while these would readily yield to compression of the mass as a 

 whole. The skull would thereby be subjected to a process in 

 some degree analogous to that by which the abnormal develop- 

 ments of the Flathead crania are eflfected during infancy, involv- 

 ing as it does, great relative displacement of the cerebral mass, 

 but little or no diminution of the internal capacity. The dis- 

 covery of numerous traces of domestic pottery, pipes, stone im- 

 plements and weapons in the same locality, furnishes abundant 

 proof that it was the site of the Indian village as well as a 

 cemetery, and thereby demonstrates the probability of the 

 erection of- such a structure, or the accumulation of some pon- 

 derous mass over the grave at a period so near to that of the 

 original interment, as would abundantly suffice to produce the 

 change of form described. To some such causes similar examples 

 of posthumous cranial malformation must be ascribed ; as they 

 are so entirely exceptional as to preclude the idea of their result- 

 ing from the mere pressure of the ordinary superincumbent mass 

 of earth. 



" Another skull found in the same ancient Indian cemetery, 

 apparently that of a female, and now in the collection of Mr. 

 Guilbault, of Montreal, has also the appearance of having been 

 modified in form by artificial means, whether posthumous or 

 otherwise. The supercilliary ridges are prominent, the frontal 

 bone is receding, but convex, and the occipital bone has con- 

 siderable posterior projection, which is rendered the more pro- 

 minent by a general flattening of the coronal region, and a very 

 marked depression immediately over the lambdoidal suture, pro- 



