160 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



Rafn, secretary of the Societe Royale des Antiquaires clu Nord. * 

 The principal parts of this communication, which because of the 

 relative inaccessibility of the originals, need to be given somewhat 

 in extenso, are as follows: 



"The limestone caves of Brazil, which are so rich in bones of 

 animals, yield only very limited traces of the skeletal reniains of man. 

 My efforts to find the latter were for a number of years fruitless, a 

 fact which strengthened more and more my belief in the generally 

 accepted view that man was late in appearing in this part of the world. 

 The researches of the last few years, however, have brought other 

 v/ results. Of more than 800 caves which I have examined, six at last 

 yielded human bones, the majority of which, judging by their aspect, 

 belong to very remote times; but the circumstances under which 

 they were found did not afford at first any adequate criteria for the 

 exact determination of their age. 



"Usually the human bones were not associated with bones of 

 animals which could shed any light on this point, but a single cave 

 presented at last an exception. In this were found besides the human 

 remains the bones of divei-s animals belonging to species both existing 

 and extinct. Notwithstanding this, geologic criteria necessary for 

 the determination of the relative age of these vestiges are unfor- 

 tunately wanting, because the remains discovered were not found 

 in their original positions. 



"The cave in question is situated on the border of a lake, the watei-s of 

 which invade it during the rainy season, a circumstance which explains 

 how bones of different ages could have become accumulated within 

 it without order. However, of all the caves which I have examined 

 up to the present time, this was the only one that encouraged me to 

 anticipate the possibility of finding the solution of a question of such 

 importance as that of the age of the human genus on this continent. 

 In consequence, I did not fail to profit by the opportunity afforded 

 by the diyness of the previous year and submitted the cave to new 

 explorations. These researches, although they have not yielded 

 results capable of solving the problem of man's antiquity in a definite 

 manner, nevertheless throw important light on several other points 

 relating to that subject. . . . 



"The cave is situated in limestone rock, which rises vertically on 

 the southern border of a lake known as the Lagoa do Sumidouro. 

 The lake, large during the rains, becomes entirely empty during the 

 dry season. It is drained by means of several small crevices, named 



1 An extract from this letter was published in the Antikvarisk Tidssl:rifl,K}oheaha,xn, 184^-45, and a 

 French translation of the larger part of it appears in "Notice sur des ossements humains fossiles, trouv6s 

 dans line caverne du Br6sil," in Memoircs des Antiquaires du Nord, 1845-49, Cop^nhague (n. d.), pp. 49-77. 

 The substance of the letter is given also bj- Liitken, op. cit. (see footnote 3, p. 154, herein), pp. 21-23, and 

 references to it are found in his rfeume; in C. R. dc I' Acad. ScL, xx, Paris, 1845, p. 1368; in L'Institut, xm, 

 1845, p. 166; and in Froriep's Ncue Notizen, xxxv, 1845, p. 16. 



