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this be so, to what an enormous antiquity must it throw back the 
existence of man in this region of the western slopes of the Rocky 
Mountains and Sierra Nevada towards the Pacific ; and how is it 
to be reconciled with the universal experience from all other parts 
of the world, that the further we go back in paleolithic antiquity 
the ruder become the implements, and the more unmistakable 
the evidence for the savage and animal-like conditions of the 
earliest races ? 
AN INTERESTING PARAGRAPH. 
As I wish to post you up with the latest information bearing 
upon this interesting subject, I will conclude by reading to you a 
notice which appeared within the last few weeks in the Times 
newspaper, and for which I am unable as yet to give any con- 
firmatory evidence, though I see no reason to doubt that such a 
discovery has really been made, and, if so, the finding of two 
skulls of an exaggerated Neanderthal type, in the lower of three 
distinct strata, would be an important step in the direction of the 
missing link. 
Primitive Man.—Two Liege savants, MM. Marcel de Puydt and 
Maximilian Lohest, have announced a recent discovery which may be of 
scientific importance. In a cave at Spy, a few miles from Namur, known 
as the Biche aux Roches, they found in the sandstone two human skulls of 
extraordinary thickness resembling the celebrated skull found in the 
Neanderthal, near Elberfield. They have the same very projecting eye- 
brows, and the same low sloping forehead of a decidedly simian character. 
The finders suggest that these are types of the skulls of the primitive race 
who dwelt on the Sambre. ‘Three layers of the sandstone were plainly 
discernible. It was visible that the remains of flints, &c., deposited in 
each layer indicated different stages of skillin workmanship. The lowest 
stratum was by far the poorest in the number of the objects found and in 
the quality of their workmanship. But it was here that the skulls were 
found, so that from a scientific point of view it is most important. 
CoNFIRMATION BY ProFESSOR HUXLEY. 
Since writing the above, Professor Huxley has published an article 
in the Nineteenth Century of this month confirming these dis- 
coveries at Spy, and giving some interesting details. He says 
the men whose skeletons were found were “short of stature but 
powerfully built, with strong, curiously-curved thigh-bones, the 
lower ends of which was so fashioned that they must have walked 
with a bend at the knees. Their long depressed skulls had very 
strong brow ridges ; their lower jaws, of brutal depth and solidity, 
sloped away from the teeth, downwards and backwards, in con- 
sequence of the absence of that peculiarly characteristic feature 
of the higher type of man, the chin prominence.” Mr. Fraissaint, 
