UNIVERSITY 



OF 



HRDLICKA] SKELETAL KEMAINS 15 



not been studied until the last year. The whole investigation has 

 been carried on without preconceived opinions in regard to either the 

 presence in or the absence from northern America of early man and is 

 in the main a simple anatomical comparison. 



III. THE NEW ORLEANS SKELETON 



In a number of the older writings touching on the subject of man s 

 antiquity in North America, particularly in Nott and Gliddon, are 

 found references to the discovery of an apparently ancient skeleton 

 at New Orleans, Louisiana. The original report on this find, usually 

 credited to D. B. Dowler, 6 is by Prof. D. Drake, and reads as 

 follows : 



In 1844 I visited two gas tanks, each 60 feet in diameter and 16 feet deep, 

 recently sunk in the back part of the city [i. e., New Orleans], and received 

 from the intelligent superintendent, Doctor Rogers, an account of what was 

 met with in excavating them. At first they encountered soil and soft river 

 mud, then harder laminated blue alluvion, then deep black mold resting on 

 wet bluish quicksand. . . . The roots and the basis or stumps of no fewer 

 than four successive growths of trees, apparently cypress, were found standing 

 at different elevations. The first had a diameter of 2 feet 6 inches, the second 

 of 6 feet, the third of 4 feet, and the fourth of 12 feet, at a short distance 

 up, with a base of 28 feet for the roots. It is embedded in a soft deep-black 

 mold. When cut with the spade much of this wood resembled cheese in tex 

 ture, but hardened on drying. ... At the depth of 7 and 16 feet burnt wood 

 was met with. No shells or bones of land animals or fish were observed, but 

 in a tank previously excavated, at the depth of 16 feet the skeleton of a man 

 was found. The cranium lay between the roots of a tree and was in a tolerable 

 state of preservation, but most of the other bones crumbled on pressure. A 

 small os ilium, which I saw, indicated the female sex. A low and narrow fore 

 head, moderate facial angle, and prominent widely separated cheek bones 

 seemed to prove the skull of the same race with our present Indians. No 

 charcoal, ashes, or ornaments, of any kind w r ere found around it. 



On the basis of the foregoing rather defective data and calcula 

 tions as to the probable age of the stumps, Doctor Dowler con 

 cluded (page 17) that the &quot; human race existed in the delta more 

 than fifty-seven thousand years ago.&quot; On a little reflection this 

 estimate shoAvs so many weak points that it can not be accepted 

 for anything more than an individual opinion. The notes concern 

 ing the skull, so far as they go, indicate that the specimen resembled 

 in the main the skull of an ordinary Indian, but this conclusion 

 has little value. It is nowhere stated what became of the skeleton. 

 Drake ? s remark that &quot; most of the other bones crumbled on pressure &quot; 

 makes it probable that few, if any, parts of it have been preserved, 

 and also clearly indicates that the bones were in no degree fossilized. 



Types of Mankind, chap, xi, numerous editions, Philadelphia. 



Tableaux of New Orleans, 8-9, New Orleans, no date (published in the early fifties). 

 c A Systematic Treatise on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North 

 America, etc., 76-77, Cincinnati, 1850. 



