200 HUMAN FOSSIL OF NATCHEZ. CHAP. XT. 



assembled naturalists at Le Puy, that the skull of the c fossil 

 man of Denise,' although contemporary with the mammoth, 

 and coeval with the last eruptions of the Le Puy volcanoes, 

 should be of the ordinary Caucasian or European type ; but 

 the observations of Professor Huxley on the Engis skull, 

 cited in the fifth chapter, showing the near approach of that 

 ancient cranium to the European standard, will help to 

 remove this source of perplexity. 



Human Fossil of Natchez on the Mississippi. 



I have already alluded to Dr. Bowler's attempt to calculate, 

 in years, the antiquity of the human skeleton said to have 

 been buried under four cypress forests in the delta of the 

 Mississippi, near New Orleans (see page 43). In that case 

 no remains of extinct animals were found associated with 

 those of man : but in another part of the basin of the 

 Mississippi, a human bone, accompanied by bones of the 

 mastodon and megalonyx, is supposed to have been washed 

 out of a more ancient alluvial deposit. 



After visiting the spot in 1846, I described the geological 

 position of the bones, and discussed their probable age, with 



Fig. 26 



1 Modern alluvium of the Mississippi. 2 Loam or loess. 



3, / Eocene. 4 Cretaceous. 



a stronger bias, I must confess, as to the antecedent improba 

 bility of the contemporaneous entombment of man and 

 the mastodon than any geologist would now be justified in 

 entertaining. 



In the latitude of Vicksburg 32 50' N., the broad, flat, 

 alluvial plain of the Mississippi, a b, fig. 26, is bounded on 



