hrdliCka] skeletal REMAINS OF EAELY MAN 311 



by Ameghino in his ''Le Diprothomo platensis. " He notes that Ame- 

 ghino's orientation of the specimen is incorrect; moreover, his illustra- 

 tion has suffered from the specimen having been placed too near the 

 camera ; also there are faults in the restoration. But Mochi fails to 

 recognize that the skull is deformed and that the face is so ill-repaired 

 that the whole part, including the nose and the orbits, is much liigher 

 than naturally. The writer feels confident that, with a little more 

 leisure at his disposal in the examination of the specimens, Doctor 

 Moclii would have easily recognized the existence of these several 

 important features. . 



Moclii does not agree with Ameghino in regard to the latter's char- 

 acterizations of the glabellar and subglabellar region and especially 

 as to the forward position of the denture. Both, especially the latter, 

 are properly referred to the false orientation of the skull ; in a similar 

 pose quite the same features appear in nearly all human crania. 



Finally, Ameghino's estimate of the stature of the individual to 

 whom the skull belonged appears to Mochi too small. 



OBSERVATIONS BY THE WRITER 



The skuUs in question, with all the other specimens from the neigh- 

 borhood of Necochea, were freely placed by Professor Ameghino before 

 the writer for examination. Further, the locality of the find was 

 visited.^ The results of these investigations sustain neither the claim 

 for any special morphologic peculiarity nor that of considerable antiq- 

 uity for these remains. They are, in brief, as follows: 



Owing to some changes in the surface, produced by the winds and 

 the blown sand, the exact spot from which the bones were taken could 

 not be located, though the party was accompanied by the gardener who 

 discovered them. It was, however, part of the general irregular wind- 

 denuded surface which stretches inland from the coast. The wind 

 erosion is not on the whole of great depth, for there are in the near 

 neighborhood various piles of earth which still show the presence of 

 vegetal soil and which yield numerous recent skulls and bones of the 

 viscacha ; these are the remnants of viscacheras which existed not very- 

 long ago, before the looser earth about them was blown away.^ Over 

 this denuded, uneven surface were found by the party more than thirty 

 "white" and '' black" chips or implements, and others had been picked 

 up before by the gardener's children. As mentioned, the bones were so 

 near the surface that they were exposed by the wheels of a wagon. 

 So far as the gardener could recollect they represented at least one 

 complete, or nearly complete, skeleton. Here was evidently a grave, 

 which could not have been very deep beneath the surface of the plain 



I Compare geologic notes on a part of the same locality, by BaUey Willis, under Homo sinemento. 

 ' The viscacha burrows as a rule are found in low hillocks covered with bushes, the roots of which naturally 

 retard wind erosion. 



