22 Mr. Weaver on Fossil Human Bones. [Jan. 



ances, yielding in clusters, as it were, and under precisely the 

 same circumstances, a number of bones of land animals, among 

 which are distinctly to be observed also human bones. 



Even from the first opening of these quarries, which took 

 place about 30 years ago, the bones of man and other animals 

 have thus been met with. According to the unanimous relation 

 of the workmen, the former have usually been found at a depth 

 of 16 to 30 feet from the surface, and this has happened in 

 almost every quarry that has hitherto been opened in the gyp- 

 sum, and always under the same relations. The cases are rare 

 in which human and other animal bones have appeared singly 

 near the surface of the gypsum, adjacent to the vegetable sod: 

 these have undergone a much greater change, are more pene- 

 trated with calcareous matter, and are heavier than the bones 

 met with in depth. Our own experience confirmed the affirma- 

 tion of the workmen, that various bones are always found toge- 

 ther, assembled in a heap, as it were, in the loamy deposit. On 

 visitino - Kornman's gypsum quarry, we discovered there in a 

 nearly vertical fissure, and at the depth of 16 to 18 feet from the 

 surface, a number of bones belonging to quadrupeds and birds, 

 firmly imbedded in the loam, Though in a disjointed state, 

 they appear referable to skeletons, that were formerly more or 

 less complete. The idea has been advanced, that the bones of 

 the smaller animals might have been brought there by owls, 

 foxes, and other animals of prey ; being, however, not found in 

 caverns, but invariably enveloped in the loam, under the same 

 circumstances, this supposition seems invalid ; and it is besides 

 contradicted by the appearance of the bones. 



It is also evident that the human bones could neither have 

 been buried here, nor have fallen into the fissures of the gypsum 

 during battles in ancient times, nor have been thus mutilated and 

 lodged by any other accidental cause in more modern days ; 

 inasmuch as they are always found with the other animal 

 remains under the same relations, not constituting connected 

 skeletons, but collected in various small groups in the deposit of 

 loam, that occupies the fissures and cavities of the gypsum. 

 They appear, therefore, to be strictly fossil, and to have been 

 swept hither by floods, with the other animal bones, at the period 

 of the formation of the alluvial tract itself. 



If, as may be expected, this phenomenon should be further 

 confirmed by the more extended examination of the Kostritz 

 district, now in progress, it will render probable the supposition, 

 that the human Lo.ies found in calcareous tufa also, are likewise 

 referable to the same period ; and consequently that man existed 

 here previous to the formation of the alluvial tracts, the last great 

 revolution to, which the earth has been subjected. It has been 

 already remarked by Cuvier (Recherches, &c. torn. i. p. 66), 

 that this epoch of a great deluge, by which many animals were 

 destroyed, whose remains are now found in alluvial tracts alone, 

 $nd not in any strata of an earlier era, nearly coincides with our 



