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indications of similar dendrites were visible in a Roman skull 
from Siegburg; whilst other ancient skulls, which had lain for 
centuries in the earth, presented no trace of them.* Iam 
indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following remarks on this 
subject :— 
“ The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which were 
formerly regarded as a sign of a truly fossil condition, is in- 
teresting. It has even been supposed that in diluvial deposits 
the presence of dendrites might be regarded as affording a 
certain mark of distinction between bones mixed with the 
diluvium at a somewhat later period and the true diluvial 
relics, to which alone it was supposed that these deposits were 
confined. But 1 have long been convinced that neither can 
the absence of dendrites be regarded as indicative of recent 
age, nor their presence as sufficient to establish the great 
antiquity of the objects upon which they occur. I have my- 
self noticed upon paper, which could scarcely be more than a 
year old, dendritic deposits, which could not be distinguished 
from those on fossil bones. Thus I possess a dog’s skull from 
the Roman colony of the neighbouring Heddersheim, Castrum 
Hadrianum, which is in no way distinguishable from the fossil 
bones from the Frankish caves ; it presents the same colour, 
and adheres to the tongue just as they do; so that this 
character also, which, at a former meeting of German natu- 
ralists at Bonn, gave rise to amusing scenes between Buckland 
and Schmerling, is no longer of any value. In disputed cases, 
therefore, the condition of the bone can scarcely afford the 
means for determining with certainty whether it be fossil, 
that is to say, whether it belong to geological antiquity or to 
the historical period.” 
As we cannot now look upon the primitive world as repre- 
senting a wholly different condition of things, from which no 
transition exists to the organic life of the present time, the 
designation of fossil, as applied to a bone, has no longer the 
sense it conveyed in the time of Cuvier. Sufficient grounds exist 
* Verh. des Naturhist. Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857. 
