216 heport— 1878. 



jaw were found in the mouth of the south cave. ' These numbers of 

 course very strongly support the view that these bones fell in from a 

 burial place corresponding to the segment of depression ; and that the 

 accident inseparable from such a tumbling down, and the subsequent 

 scattering inseparable from the presence of the burrowings of badgers and 

 foxes, account for the scattering of the comparatively insignificant num- 

 ber of bones found at any great distance from that area. It is instructive 

 also to put on record the fact that whilst a larger number of calvarial 

 bones was found in the depression segment, which we suppose to have 

 underlaid the place of interment of the human remains, than in all the 

 rest of the entire cave, only three more or less fragmentary lower jaws 

 were found in company with them ; whilst by Mr. Laws five mQre or less 

 nearly complete lower jaws were found in the north, and a large frag- 

 ment of a sixth in the south cave. The palaeontologist will find the fre- 

 quency of the separation of the lower jaw from the rest of the cranium, 

 with which he is so familiar, illustrated by this fact. 



We have absolute proof in the nine lower jaws just spoken of that 

 no less than nine human beings have their skeletons represented in the 

 collection made from this cave. Two fragmentary representatives of 

 lower jaws found — one in the talus outside the north entrance, the other 

 in the middle of the north cave— correspond probably to two other 

 skeletons, but it is just possible that they may be parts of some one or 

 other of the nine demonstrably distinct mandibles. Of these nine indi- 

 viduals, no less than five were males in or beyond the middle period of 

 life, one belonged to a woman in late life, one to a person about the age of 

 puberty, with the wisdom tooth as yet uncut, one to a child with the first 

 two molars just cut, one to a child with none but the milk teeth in 

 place. 



Three more or less perfect calvaria have been reconstructed out of 

 the remains collected by Mr. Laws and ourselves ; one from the cranial 

 bones found in the north cave, two from those found in the depression 

 segment. All of the crania are dolichocephalic ; and one, a male skull, 

 that which came from the north cave, " mecistocephalic," in Professor 

 Huxley's language, with a cephalic index of 69, and with the pear-shaped 

 contour when viewed from above, due to rapid tapering from the level of 

 the parietal tubera forwards, which has so often been spoken of since 

 the writings of Professor Daniel Wilson as characteristic of many skulls 

 from the earliest sepultures of Great Britain. There is no doubt that 

 this is a very ancient form of skull, but the well-known tenacity and per- 

 sistence of such ancient forms forbids us to use it as an evidence as to 

 date. Of the other two, one belonged undoubtedly to a man, the other 

 to a woman ; and neither, though dolichocephalic, are exaggeratedly 60, 

 as is the case with the first-named of the three. 



The long bones are all more or less fragmentary ; they do not pre- 

 sent any peculiarities specially worthy of notice ; the femora have not their 

 linece asperce greatly developed, though in one or two the upper portion of 

 the shaft is somewhat flattened from before backwards in the origin of 

 the insertion of the glutaeus maximus ; the tibia? are not platycnemic ; and 

 neither these nor any other of the bones give the notion of their owners 

 being much above or below the average size and height. In a word, 

 they have not the peculiarities of prehistoric bones. The human bones 

 present much the same appearance as to staining, wear and tear, and 

 weathering as the bones of bear and of domesticated animals found with 



