SKELETAL REMAINS 55 



THE HANSON LANDING REMAINS 



About 8 miles north of Osprey and on the same line of shore is a 

 locality called, after its owner, Hanson s landing, and here also some 

 fossil human bones, consisting of a skull and several other parts of 

 the skeleton, were discovered. Early in 1886 this locality was visited 

 by Prof. Angelo Heilprin and Mr. Joseph Wilcox, and several parts 

 of a fossilized human skeleton were actually found in situ. Pro 

 fessor Heilprin described the find a as follows : 



I was conducted to a spot where it had been reported a human skeleton lay 

 embedded in the rock. The rock I found to be a partially indurated ferrugi 

 nous sandstone, removed but a short distance from the sea and but barely ele 

 vated above it ; the condition of its exposure was doubtless the result of recent 

 sea waste. I was much surprised to find actually embedded in this rock 

 and more or less firmly united w r ith it the skeletal remains of a mammalian 

 which I had little difficulty in determining to be the genus homo. Most of the 

 parts, including the entire head, had at various times been removed by the 

 curiosity seekers of the neighborhood, but enough remained to indicate the 

 position occupied by the body in the matrix. The depression which received 

 the head was still very plainly marked, but unfortunately the outline had 

 been too much disturbed to permit of any satisfactory impression being taken 

 from it. I was able to disengage from a confused mass of stone and skeleton 

 two of the vertebrae, which Doctor Leidy has kindly determined for me to be 

 in all probability the last dorsal and first lumbar. The distinctive cancellated 

 structure of bone is still plainly visible, but the bone itself has been completely 

 replaced by limonite. 



The same locality was visited again the following spring by Mr. 

 Wilcox, who obtained several specimens of fossilized human bones, 

 among which was a fairly well-preserved calcaneum. Finally, on 

 still another occasion, Mr. Wilcox secured at Hanson s landing &quot; a 

 piece of the rock containing the end of a human thigh bone, also 

 altered into limonite,&quot; which specimen he gave to the University of 

 Pennsylvania. 



THE SOUTH OSPREY REMAINS 



About 1888 Mr. J. G. Webb and his son-in-law, Mr. Griffith, in 

 looking for &quot; phosphate rocks &quot; Ji along the shore, discovered about 

 a mile and a half south of Osprey the remains of a human skeleton 

 embedded in and partly projecting from the exposed rock. The 

 following interesting notes concerning this find were furnished by 

 Mr. J. G. Webb in a letter addressed to Dr. W. H. Dall, dated October 

 29,1890: 



[The human bones embedded in rock] were found on the shore washed by 

 every tide, but not so always or very long. The mainland shores of the bay 



a Transactions of the Wagner Free Institute of Science, i, 14-15, Philadelphia, 1887. 



6 The so-called phosphate rocks in this region consist of ancient water-worn fossil 

 hones, particularly ribs of large cetaceans. These fossils are found, already in their 

 water-worn condition, cemented in the shore rocks and are now being washed out wherever 

 the rocks are exposed to the action of the waves. 



