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TABLE-TALK AND VARIETIES. 



those oilier revolutions by which 

 the strata containing the bones 

 have been laid bare. Hence it 

 clearly appears," he adds, " that no 

 argument for the antiquity of the 

 human race in those countries, can 

 be founded either upon these fossil 

 bones, or upon the more or less 

 considerable collections of rocks or 

 earthy materials by which they are 

 covered." 



The occurrence of human skele- 

 tons at Guadeloupe was first an- 

 nounced by General Ernouf in 1805. 

 The skeleton in the Museum was de- 

 scribed in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions, in 1814, by Mr. Charles 

 Konig, the same gentleman, we pre- 

 sume, who, till lately, superintended 

 the Natural History department of 

 the Museum. The paper is accom- 

 panied by an accurate representa- 

 tion of the skeleton, a fair tran- 

 script of which is given in Mantell's 

 Wonders of Geology. The skeleton 

 "wants the skull, and it is a curious 

 fact, mentioned by Sir Charles 

 Lyell, in his Travels in North Ame- 

 rica, in 1842, that in the Museum 

 at Charleston, South Carolina, he 

 was shown a fossil human skull 

 from Guadeloupe, imbedded in solid 

 limestone, " which they say belongs 

 to the same skeleton of a female as 

 that now preserved in the British 

 Museum, where the skull is want- 

 ing." Dr. Moultrie, of the Medical 

 College of that State, has described 

 the bones, together with the entire 

 skeleton disentombed from the 

 limestone deposit at Guadeloupe, 

 and is of opinion taking for 

 granted the relation of the skull at 

 Charleston to the headless trunk in 

 London that the latter is not the 

 skeleton of a Carib, as has been 

 generally supposed, but that of one 

 of the Peruvians, or of a tribe pos- 

 sessing a similar craniological de- 

 velopment. 



The slab of limestone in which 

 the skeleton is imbedded is 4 feet 

 2 inches long by 2 feet in breadth ; it 



has been considerably reduced since 

 it was deposited in the Museum, 

 having originally measured nearly 

 double the size, and weighed about 

 two tons. As described by Mr. 

 Konig, the whole had very much 

 the appearar.ca of a huge nodule 

 disengaged from a surrounding 

 mass ; and the situation of the 

 skeleton must have been so super- 

 ficial, that its presence in the rock 

 on the coast had probably been in- 

 dicated by the projection of part of 

 one of the arms. The rock has a 

 reddish hue, caused by the fletritus 

 of a madrepore of that colour. 

 Several shells were also found in the 

 rock, along with the fragment of a 

 tusk, a piece of basaltic stone, and 

 a small quantity of powdery matter 

 of the nature of charcoal. In re- 

 ducing the slab to convenient di- 

 mensions, its resistance to the tool 

 showed it to be harder than statu- 

 ary marble. Dr. Thomson found 

 phosphate of lime in the stone, 

 derived, doubtless, from the bones 

 of the skeleton. The vertebrae of 

 the neck have been lost along with 

 the head, and the bones of the 

 thorax are considerably dislocated 

 and shattered. The vertebrae of 

 the spinal column are all present, 

 although they are individually not 

 well defined. The bones of one of 

 the legs are in a good state of pre- 

 servation; those of the other are 

 less entire. Both the arms are 

 broken, and their parts displaced. 

 But notwithstanding these and 

 other defects, the outline of the 

 skeleton is sufficiently complete to 

 indicate to the least practised eye, 

 that when these imprisoned bones 

 were united by ligaments, and 

 clothed with muscles and sinews, 

 and the system was permeated by 

 blood-vessels, and instinct with 

 nervous sensibility, the life which 

 animated the whole was human 

 the spirit which inhabited the 

 mortal frame, was immortal and 

 survives ! Mr. Hugh Miller, in his 



