Ii8 Notes and Comments. 



DETAILS OF THE NEW DISCOVERY. 



In the winter of 1915 the late Mr. Charles Dawson discovered' 

 in a ploughed field, about a mile distant from the original 

 spot, the inner supraorbital part of a frontal bone, the middle 

 of an occipital bone, and a left lower first molar tooth, all 

 evidently human. These are rolled fragments, and the first 

 and third may be referred with certainty to Eoanthropus 

 dawsoni ; but it is doubtful whether they represent more than 

 one individual. In mineralized condition they agree with the 

 remains of the type-specimen. The piece of frontal bone 

 exhibits the characteristic texture and thickness, with only 

 a very slight supraciliary ridge, and a small development of 

 air-sinuses. The occipital bone is somewhat less thickened 

 than that of the original specimen of Eoanthropus, and bears 

 the impression of a less unsymmetrical brain. The external 

 occipital protuberance is a little above the upper limit of the 

 cerebellum, as in Neanderthal man ; thus differing from the 

 condition both in Eoanthropus and in modern man. The 

 lower molar is exactly similar to the first lower molar of Eoan- 

 thropus already described, but it is more obliquely worn by 

 mastication. Detailed comparison shows that this tooth is 

 human, differing essentially from that of a chimpanzee in its 

 more hypsodont crown, thicker enamel, and less prominence 

 of the neck over the root. The occurrence of the same type 

 of frontal bone with the same type of lower molar in two dis- 

 tinct localities, adds to the probability of their belonging to 

 one and the same species. With these remains were found 

 brown flints in great abundance, and one rolled portion of a 

 lower molar tooth of Rhinoceros in the same highly-mineralized 

 condition as the derived Pliocene teeth at Piltdown. 



PARKA DECIPIENS. 



This curious Old Red Sandstone fossil, made known to so 

 many by Hugh Miller's ' Old Red Sandstone,' is the subject 

 of an important paper by the late Lieut. A. W. R. Don, and 

 Dr. G. Hickling, in the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society,' part 4 of Vol. LXXI. for 1915, published January 

 13th, 1917. The fossil was early recognised as ' puddock 

 spawn ' by the Forfarshire quarrymen, a view supported by 

 Mantell. Powrie suggested that Parka was the egg packet of 

 Pterygotus — a view accepted by Lyell, Page, Murchison, 

 Woodward, Huxley and a host of others, and this view for a 

 long time was generally held. In 1890, Messrs. Reid and Gra- 

 ham were convinced of the vegetable nature of Parka, and the 

 present authors do much to prove this. They consider that 

 Parka is a complete plant, flat and thalloid, of variable form 

 and size, and to have increased by marginal growth. It was 

 a Thallophyte with Algal affinities. 



Naturalist,. 



