SKELETAL REMAINS 29 



Professor Baird, at that time Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, to the effect that the locality at which the Rock Bluff 

 skull was discovered had been examined by &quot; McConnell,&quot; who found 

 that the drift in which the specimen lay was in no way disturbed and 

 that, therefore, the skull was not intrusive, but coincided in age with 

 the formation of the deposit. Schmidt ends his account with the 

 opinion that the age of the two specimens (skull and lower jaw, the 

 latter of which he considered as belonging to a different body), pro- 

 Added it is established that they were found in undisturbed drift, is 

 very considerable and referable to &quot; the Champlain, or even to the 

 glacial, epoch.&quot; 



A search in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution resulted 

 in finding two letters from Mr. McConnell, of Jacksonville, Illinois, 

 the donor of the skull. It is not disclosed who Mr. McConnell was; 

 there appear to be no contributions under that name to the literature 

 of either geology or anthropology. In his letter of June 4, 1866, 

 addressed to Prof. Joseph Henry, is the following: 



I have sent to you by express a small box containing a human skull of an 

 unusual shape and formation. It is evidently not deformed, but a natural 

 skull, and from its shape and the place where it was found it is believed not to 

 have belonged to any race of men now known to exist, and it is conjectured 

 it may have belonged to a preadamite race, if there was any such race. . . . 

 I have never met with such a formed head, either living or dead, as this, and 

 for this reason I send it to you, supposing from your opportunities in this 

 branch of science you might determine if I am right in supposing this specimen 

 not to have belonged to any one of the present races now extant. I now will 

 refer particularly to the place where this skull was found. The Illinois river 

 . . . has cut through the various stratas down to a level, and in many cases 

 below the upper coal-deposits. Along the Illinois bluff the strata of rock cover 

 ing this coal deposit crop out, and this rock is quarried for building purposes. 

 In one of these quarries a few miles south of the fortieth degree of north lati 

 tude this skull was found, several feet of clay, sand, and broken stone were 

 taken off of the strata, and, in quarrying, a rift or seam in the rock was found, 

 about 3 feet wide, filled with the same material that covered the quarry, and 

 in this rift or seam in the rock, firmly embedded in this clay, sand, and broken 

 material, this skull was found. Examination showed that it had evidently been 

 thrown, or washed, into that opening in the rock with the material that sur 

 rounded it. 



In the neighborhood of this quarry and indeed all along the Illinois river 

 are found many mounds, called in this country Indian mounds, but evidently 

 (they) have no Connection with the present race of Indians. 



In an additional note to Professor Henry, of June 11, 1866, Mr. 

 McConnell, besides enumerating various persons who would vouch 

 for his character, says : 



I have been a long time in the valley of the Mississippi and have traveled 

 over most of it and have always had a passion for hunting up old relics and 

 studying this and geology by actual personal examination. 



