250 Original Articles. | April, 
THE FOSSIL SKULL CONTROVERSY. 
ON HUMAN CRANIA ALLIED IN ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS 
TO THE ENGIS AND NEANDERTHAL SKULLS. 
By mie Turner, M.B., F.R.S.E., Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy 
in the University of Edinbur eh. 
Or the various crania which during the last few years have come under 
the notice of the geologist and anatomist, few, perhaps, have excited 
so much interest as those fragments of two human skulls which, from 
the localities where they were found, have been named the Engis and 
Neanderthal skulls. The lengthened descriptions given of them in the 
recent works of Sir C. Lyell ‘On the Antiquity of Man,’ and of Professor 
Huxley ‘On Man’s Place in Nature,’ and the light which they have 
been supposed to cast on the solution of the great problem of the 
antiquity of the human race, have caused a large amount of attention 
to be directed to them. Not only have the various circumstances 
connected with their discovery, the geological conditions under which 
they were found, and their association or non-association with various 
animal bones, been carefully noted, but their shape, proportions, and 
general anatomical characters have been minutely studied. 
Tae Hnars Cranium. 
This skull was discovered by the persevering researches of Dr. 
Schmerling in the Engis cave, in the province of Liége, in Belgium. 
It was found with other fragments of human bones, covered by a layer 
of stalagmite, and along with it were imbedded the bones of various 
extinct animals, as the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, and the cave 
bear. Dr. Schmerling regarded it as cotemporaneous with those 
animals, and from independent researches into the geological relations 
of the locality, the same opinion has been arrived at by Sir C. Lyell. 
The skull is a fragment, but the vault of the cranium is preserved. 
It is to all appearance that of an adult male. Mr. Huxley has care- 
fully described and figured it in both the works above referred to, and 
has come to the following conclusions respecting it. That there is 
nothing in its character to give any trustworthy clue to the Race to 
which it might appertain, for though some of its contours and measure- 
ments agree well with some Australian skulls, yet others agree equally 
well with some Eur opean crania; that there is no mark of “degradation 
about it; that it is a fair average human skull, which might have be- 
longed to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless 
brains of a savage. 
The skull with which I am going to compare it was sent to the 
Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh some months 
back by Mr. Henry Duckworth, F.G.S. It was found by him in the 
summer of 1861, when on a visit to St. Acheuil, near Amiens. “ It lay 
about six feet from the surface, in a deposit termed by the quarrymen 
the ‘Découvert’ bed, which deposit appeared like a narrow vein or 
