364 0. F. Moncldon — HuTnan Skeleton, B. Columbia. 



This expansive power of crystallizing or solidifying minerals may 

 be credited also with the formation of those problematic structures 

 known as ' stylolites ' or ' lignilites '. 



Given a horizontal film of some impervious substance in a mass of 

 calcareous mud, hard particles above or below it to serve as nuclei 

 for the deposition of calcareous material from one side only, and we 

 should expect that this force of expansion in solidification would 

 force a nucleus below the film xipward and one above the film 

 downward, simulating exactly what we find in 'stylolites'. 



In closing, the writer would allude to another observation which 

 seems to point in the same direction. He has often received drillings 

 from artesian wells. When they have been put wet into glass 

 bottles he has frequently found some of the bottles broken in drying. 

 So far as tests were made, all those broken were found to contain 

 matter highly calcareous, while those unbroken were sand or clay 

 without calcareous material. 



YII. — Geological Notes on a Hn.UAN Skeleton found in Silt at 

 Savonas, British Columbia. 



By Geoffrey F. Monckton. 



IN" the early part of 1910 I noticed some bones projecting from 

 a cliff near the foot of Kamloops Lake, B.C. The cliff is 

 composed of silt, and belongs to the formation known as the White 

 Silts. These belong to the Quaternary period, having been laid 

 down during the retreat of the great glacier. Tliey stand in very 

 steep banks, which is partly due to the small rainfall, only 7 inches, 

 in this district. Little streams of water from melting snow, collecting 

 in a hollow on the fiat behind, had been for three years or so 

 gradually cutting a fissure, and it was in the side of this fissure 

 that these bones appeared. Some cutting down of the face of the 

 cliff to bank up the trail exposed them more, and at the end of the 

 year a road was made up it and we took them out. The silt is very 

 definitely laminated. There are also a few seams of fine pebbles 

 through it. One of these actually touched the bones. None of these 

 seams or laminations showed any sign of movement of the ground. 

 Had the bones been put in from the top it would have necessitated 

 a hole 12 feet deep. A fissure would iTave left its mark on the seams 

 of pebbles. People have been living along the beach in front of the 

 cliff since 18fi0, and at that time the face of the cliff must have been 

 at least 8 feet farther forward, as it has not only been constantly 

 cut back from time to time in order to bank up the trail, but a good 

 deal was taken away in the early eighties to level sites for houses. 

 The bones must therefore be of the same age as the silt. 



The silt is very dry, and contains a small quantity of lime. It 

 should therefore be a good preservative medium. 



As to its position, the bones of the body were all bunched together, 

 the legs stretched forward, and the skull close to the knee, as if the 

 body had rested in the soft mud in a sitting position, and, as it 

 decayed, the bones had fallen together. I should imagine that its 

 owner was drowned very likely by falling through thin ice. There 



