WHOLE VOL. SKELETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN HRDLICKA 25 



factory with the coproHte from a cart or tumbril, and from thence was brought 

 to me to secure a glass of beer. I had possession of it for near three months, 

 when Sir Thos. Beaver (whose son was then living with me) called on me, and 

 seeing that he exhibited great interest in the inquiry as to the antiquity of the 

 jaw, I had the pleasure of presenting him with it. 



There is no doubt the bone was obtained at some depth as I know the pit had 

 been open for a considerable time when it was found. 



I visited the coprolite pit in 1855, immediately after it was found, and ascer- 

 tained that it had been worked for over a year. The place from which " the jaw," 

 in all probability, came was 16 feet below the surface. 



Before the publication of his paper Dr. CoUyer took the specimen 

 to Richard Owen, the comparative anatomist, " who kept it for two 

 years without coming to any expressed opinion." During the dis- 

 cussion following the presentation of the specimen before the London 

 Ethnological .Society, G. Busk, the paleontologist, " pronounced the 

 ' coprolite jaw ' in the most summary manner to be ' the jaw of some 

 old wornan, perhaps from some Roman burial ground.' " Huxley, 

 after a careful examination of the specimen, which was loaned to him, 

 wrote Collyer as follows : " No doubt, as I .stated when you were so 

 good as to show me the jaw, it has some peculiar characters, but they 

 do not appear to me in themselves adequate to lead me to ascribe the 

 bone to an extinct or aberrant race of mankind, and the condition 

 of the bone is not such as I should expect a crag fossil to be." Later ' 

 Falconer and Busk write : " The specimen is a very remarkable lower 

 jaw of a human subject now belonging to Dr. Robert H. Collyer. It 

 is reputed to have been found in the gravel heap of a coprolite pit 

 near Ipswich ; although retaining a portion of its gelatine, it is infil- 

 trated through and through with iron. The Haversian cords are 

 filled with red oxide, and a section of the fang shows that the ivory 

 is partly infiltrated with the same metal. This specimen proves that 

 the human jaw, if favorably placed, is equally susceptible of im- 

 pregnation with metallic matter as the bones of any other mammal." 

 A month later Busk, after a further examination of the bone, writes 

 Collyer : " I have considerably modified the opinion I hastily ex- 

 pressed at the Ethnological Society. That is to say, it is very different 

 from an ordinary churchyard bone, though of course, without any 

 relation as regards age with the fossil bones of the coprolite beds ; 

 it is of very great antiquity, and it is peculiarly remarkable for the 

 great amount of iron it contains, though still retaining about 8 per 

 cent of animal matter. On the whole, therefore, though not of the 

 portentous antiquity it would have claimed had it been contemporary 

 of Elephas meridionalis , the ' coprolite jaw ' fairly claims a consider- 



' Nat. Hist. Rev., July, 1863, Note 37. 



