306 



TABLE-TALK AND VARIETIES. 



liament 4925 ; tliey are chiefly 

 historical, but include a rare ver- 

 sion of the Bible in French, upon 

 vellum, of Charles V.'s time. 

 Amongst the classical manuscripts 

 is one of the earliest extant of 

 Homer's Odyssey, and another of 

 the Iliad, the latter having cost 

 600 guineas. There is an exten- 

 sive collection of ancient Irish ma- 

 nuscripts, including The Brehon 

 Laws, by which Ireland was go- 

 verned before the Anglo-Norman 

 invasion. A selection from the 

 manuscript collections of the late 

 Richard Heber was purchased at 

 2000. There are in the Museum 

 numerous Egyptian and Greek 

 papyri, or writings on the mate- 

 rial formed from the cellular tissue 

 of the papyrus plant, which was 

 used for this purpose before the 

 invention of modern paper. From 

 the ruins of Herculaneum there 

 have been dug up no fewer than 

 1800 papyri, which have been de- 

 posited in the museum at Naples. 

 The manuscript department of the 

 library is rapidly increasing. In- 

 dependently of those MSS. classed 

 under the names of their collectors, 

 there have been added 17,416, of 

 which 2416 have been obtained 

 since the year 1844. These are in 

 Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Armenian, 

 Persian, Venetian, Portuguese, 

 Chinese, Mexican, Russian, Ger- 

 man, Italian, Welsh, French, Flem- 

 ish, and early English. The illu- 

 minated manuscripts are objects of 

 much interest. They are generally 

 curious examples of conventual art 

 in the middle ages, and some of 

 them are eminently beautiful. 



THE FOSSIL HUMAN SKELETON OF 

 GUADELOUPE IN THE BRITISH 



MUSEUM. 



The fossil human skeleton of 

 Guadeloupe, which was brought to 

 this country by Admiral Sir Alex- 

 ander Cochrane, and presented to 

 the Museum by the Lords of the 



Admiralty, is one of the most 

 attractive objects in that unrivalled 

 collection. It was found imbedded 

 in a mass of limestone in the island 

 of Guadeloupe ; and as this was the 

 first instance in which human bones 

 had ever been discovered in the 

 solid rock, not a few inconsiderate 

 reasoners leaped to the conclusion 

 that here at last was evidence irre- 

 fragable of a greatly higher anti- 

 quity for the human race than is 

 assigned to it by the most ancient 

 writings in the world ; the preten- 

 sions of which writings to a Divine 

 authority were believed by this .class 

 of thinkers to succumb to the same 

 conclusive testimony. But when 

 the fossil and the rock in which it 

 was entombed came to be examined, 

 the idea of its geological antiquity 

 was declared to be . utterly unten- 

 able, and the hopes which infidelity 

 had begun to found upon it vrere 

 most effectually dissipated. There 

 are not now two opinions ar. 

 geologists as to the age of the skele- 

 ton, or the nature of the rock in 

 which it was preserved. The bones 

 themselves are not mineralized or 

 petrified, but retain, according to 

 the analysis of Sir Humphry Davy, 

 the usual constituents of fresh bone, 

 namely, animal matter and phos- 

 phate of lime, and in fact they were 

 of a somewhatsoft consistency when 

 first exposed to the air. These facts 

 were alone sufficient to have upset 

 the wild notions which took posses- 

 sion of the minds of sceptics in re- 

 ligion and sciolists in science, when 

 the Guadeloupe skeleton was dis- 

 covered. But its presumed high 

 antiquity was still further disproved 

 by the condition of the rock, which 

 is a bed of limestone forming a 

 sloping bank betwixt the island 

 cliffs and the sea, and lying within 

 high-water mark ; consisting of 

 consolidated sand, with fragments 

 of shells and madrepores or corals, 

 of species inhabiting the present 

 seas ; and stone arrow-heads, carved 



