T. McK. Hughes — Man in the Crag. 247 



habitants on tlie occurrence of this and previous paroxysms of their 

 unquiet and disagreeable neighbour, is not very unreasonable. 



Signor Palmieri, who watched throughout with creditable con- 

 stancy the progress of the eruption, from his Observatory on the 

 Crocelle, appears by so doing to have gained a character of almost 

 superhuman heroism among the frightened population of Naples 

 and its environs. The philosopher must have been much amused at 

 the fervour of his extravagant admirers, who raised him almost to 

 the level of their adored St. Januarius ; knowing as he well did, of 

 course, the very small amount of danger that he incurred while he 

 remained at his post, under a substantial roof, above the possible 

 reach of any lava-stream, in a building founded on a portion of old 

 Somma, which has certainly never been seriously disturbed for the 

 last 1800 years. He, better than any one, knows that the phenomena 

 of the late eruption were by no means so exceptional as our new.'^- 

 paper correspondents would persuade us, but of the ordinary type of 

 moderate Vesuvian paroxysms, such as the mountain has exhibited 

 perhaps a dozen times within the last hundred years. That, indeed, 

 is the judgment he is said to have passed upon it. 



III. — Man in the Cbag. 



By T. McK. Hughes, M.A., F.S.A., F.G.S., 



of tlie Geological Survey of England and "Wales. 



PAEAGEA.PHS have appeared in several papers announcing more 

 or less distinctly the discovery of fossils in the Crag which bear 

 upon them marks of human work. Having had considerable oppor- 

 tunities of looking into this question, I venture to offer some reasons 

 for believing that there is not the slightest evidence for attributing 

 the phenomena in question to the agency of man. 



The case may be thus briefly stated : — Some of the Crag deposits 

 being composed of phosphate of lime are used for the manufacture of 

 artificial manure, and therefore a very large number of fossils are 

 turned over. Among them we find, in various states of preservation, 

 sharks' teeth and vertebrae, sponges, and concretionary masses of 

 various symmetrical forms. Some of the teeth have been found 

 perforated in such a manner that they might be strung together for 

 ornaments, or arranged along the edge of an instrument like a saw ; 

 just as we find similar teeth employed by savage races at the present 

 time. Spherical, oval, and pear-shaped bodies also are found with a 

 hole through the centre such as gives them the appearance of beads 

 or net-sinkers. The whole question then resolves itself into this : 

 Is it impossible or improbable that nature produced these forms ? — for 

 on that assumption only can they be considered as evidence of the 

 existence of Man in the Crag Period. 



What then is the evidence ? Only a few of the teeth have been 

 found bored right through, and not nearly all of these have the per- 

 foration in the middle of the basal portion of the tooth (see Pig. 1),* 



^ I have borrowed the specimens, figured on pp. 248 and 249, from my friend Mr. 

 Etheridge, who entirely agrees with me in the views expressed in this paper. 



