278 



protrutling mouth, while Porites and Madrepores have a mouth 

 on a level with the edge of the calicle, a;nd only twelve tentacles. 

 Dana therefore puts under Cavyophyllacea the Uendrophyllia;, 

 and under Madreporacea the Madrepores and Porites. 



Dr. A. A. Hayes read a letter from Dr. C. F. Wins- 

 low, of Troy, N. Y., and presented, in his name, a sup- 

 posed fragment of a human cranium, found in California, 

 180 feet below the surface of Table Mountain. The 

 thanks of the Society were voted for the gift. 



Dr. Winslow writes : " I sent by a friend, who was going to 

 Boston this morning, a precious relic of the human race of earlier 

 times, found recently in California, 180 feet below the surface of 

 Table Mountain. As it is the first organic sign of human exist- 

 ence preceding or coeval with a drift age, or a general or minor 

 ' deluge,' that has been found in the earth, I have thought it 

 would be interesting for the scientific gentlemen of Boston to 

 discuss the subject, and for a portion of the fragment sent to me to 

 be preserved in the cabinet of your Society of Natural History. 

 My friend Col. Hubbs, whose gold-claims in the mountains seem to 

 have given him much knowledge of this singular locality, writes 

 that the fragment was brought up in ' pay dirt ' (the miners' name 

 for the placer gold drift) of the Columbia claim, and that the 

 various strata passed through in sinking the shaft consist of vol- 

 canic formations entirely. Whether his knowledge is accurate 

 touching the volcanic formations I have some doubt, and have 

 written foi" more certain information. 



" The mastodon's bones being found in the same deposits, 

 points very clearly to the probability of the appearance of the 

 human race, on the western portions of North America at least, 

 before the extinction of those huge creatures. As I have frag- 

 ments of Mastodon and Eleplias primigenius, or a kindred spe- 

 cies, taken between ten and twenty feet below the surface, among 

 the upper placer gold deposits of the same vicinity, it would seem 

 that man was probably contemporary, for a certain period, with 

 the closing dynasties of these two formidable races of quadrupeds. 

 This discovery of human and mastodon remains in the same 

 locality gives also great strength to the possible truth of the old 



