HRDLICKA] SKELETAL REMAINS 19 



Professor Leidy gave the accompanying illustration (figure 2) of 

 the pelvic bone in question. It is seen to be a defective right os 

 innominatum, which, on comparison with a similar recent Indian 

 bone, shows nothing peculiar. This is really all that can be said 

 regarding it, and it would be quite useless to speculate as to its 

 antiquity. Had the geological evidence been conclusive in referring 

 the find to the Champlain or another late geological period, the soma- 

 tological features of the bone would not form an insuperable objec 

 tion to tl^is disposition of it. . 



VI. THE LAKE MONROE (FLORIDA) BONES 



In W. Usher s chapter on Geology and Paleontology in connection 

 with human origins, in Xott and Gliddon s Types of Mankind, we 

 find an account by Professor Agassiz of fossilized and supposedly 

 ancient human &quot; jaws with perfect teeth and portions of a foot,&quot; 

 discovered apparently about 1852 or 1853 by Count F. de Pourtales 

 &quot; in a bluff upon the shores of Lake Monroe,&quot; Florida. &quot; The mass in 

 which they were found is a conglomerate of rotten coral-reef lime 

 stone and shejls, mostly ampularias of the same species now found in 

 the St. John River, which drains Lake Monroe.&quot; The deposit is of 

 lacustrine origin and contains remains of animal forms that are still 

 in existence. Its age Agassiz could not give with precision ; it was 

 considered certain by him, however, that &quot; the whole of the southern 

 extremity of Florida, with the Everglades, has been added to that 

 part of the continent since the basin has been in existence, in which 

 the conglomerate with human bones has been accumulating.&quot; Cal 

 culations based on the growth of the peninsula and its duration in 

 a desert state left Professor Agassiz still &quot; ten thousand years, dur 

 ing which it should be admitted that the mainland w r as inhabited 

 by man.&quot; 



The foregoing, unfortunately, seems to be the only account of the 

 specimen. It is mentioned by Lyell 6 without any further particu 

 lars. It is not stated at what depth the human bones were discov 

 ered or in what association. There is, finally, nothing known us to 

 the physical characteristics of the specimens beyond the fact that 

 the teeth were perfect,&quot; and nothing as to their fate. On the 

 whole, the claim to antiquity of this particular find is not a strong 

 one. Fossilization itself means in Florida but little, as the process 

 is even now going on in many portions of the peninsula. There is but 

 one possible conclusion regarding the Lake Monroe bones, which is 

 that they can not, on the existing evidence, be accepted as proofs of 

 the presence of early man on this continent. 



a Excerpts here given are from 10th ed., 352-353, 1871. 



6 The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, 3d ed., 44-45, London, 1863. 



