HRDLICKA] SKELETAL REMAINS 17 



remains. In a subsequent work a he states that the pelvic bone was 

 taken from a comparatively recent channel known as the Mammoth 

 ravine, at the base of a high cliff. 



The cliff consists of a Cretaceous base, a layer of Eocene material, and a sur 

 face deposit of loam or loess. 



From a clayey deposit immediately below the yellow loam, bones of the 

 Mastodon ohioticus, a species of Megalonyx, bones of the genera Equus, Bos, 

 and others, some of extinct and other presumed to be of living species, had 

 been detached, falling to the base of the cliff. Mingled with the rest, the 

 pelvic bone of man os inuominatum was obtained by Doctor Dickeson, of 

 Natchez, in whose collection I saw it. It appeared to be quite in the same 

 state of preservation, and was of the same black color as the other fossils, 

 and was believed to have come, like them, from a depth of about 30 feet 

 from the surface [of the cliff]. 



In my Second Visit to America (n, 197, 1846) I suggested, as a possible 

 explanation of this association of a human bone with remains of a Mastodon 

 and Megalonyx, that the former may possibly have been derived from the 

 vegetable soil at the top of the cliff, whereas the remains of extinct mammalia 

 were dislodged from a lower position, and both may have fallen into the same 

 heap or talus at the bottom of the ravine. The pelvic bone might, I conceived, 

 have acquired its black color by having lain for years or centuries in a dark, 

 superficial, peaty soil, common in that region. I was informed that there 

 were many human bones, in old Indian graves in the same district, stained of 

 as black a dye. ... No doubt, had the pelvic bone belonged to any recent 

 mammifer other than man, such a theory would never have been resorted to ; 

 but so long as we have only one isolated case, and are without the testimony 

 of a geologist who was present to behold the bone when still engaged in the 

 matrix, and to extract it with his own hands* it is allowable to suspend our 

 judgment as to the high antiquity of the fossil. 



The Natchez pelvic bone was described in detail and illustrated by 

 E. Schmidt in 1872. & This author takes issue with Doctor Dickeson s 

 statement that the bone belonged to a young individual; he con 

 siders it that of an adult, but damaged in such a way that it resem 

 bles an immature specimen. He takes issue also Avith Sir Charles 

 Lyell regarding the antiquity of the bone, declaring his belief that 

 it is not recent, but dates from the Champlain epoch. Schmidt 

 does not furnish any new important facts concerning the find, but 

 attempts to substantiate his view by a different interpretation of the 

 known conditions. Lyell apparently did not accept Schmidt s con 

 clusions, for the last edition of the former s Geological Evidences of 

 the Antiquity of Man contains exactly the same statement concerning 

 the Natchez bone as those published previously; and, as he was a 

 geologist and visited the locality a short time after the find had 



a The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, 3d ed., 200 et seq., London, 1863 ; 

 4th ed., 236 et seq., London, 1873. 



6 Zur Urgeschichte Nordamerikas, Arch. f. Anthrop., \, 244 et seq., 1871-72. 



c The references of Schmidt to the &quot; Champlain epoch &quot; indicate a different notion of 

 this period and a greater antiquity than that now accepted by American geologists. See 

 particularly pa?e 233 of his paper. 



3453 No. 3307 2 



