200 



was just wide enough to admit the bodies. There was no soil to cover 

 them with. It was liis impression that their lieads pointed to the 

 south-west, the feet being directed towards the north-east, following 

 the course of the fissure. No implements or garments accompanied 

 the bones, which probably were sepulchred before the advent of the 

 Moravian missionaries, and perhaps over a century since. 



The lower jaws were large and stout, and the teeth " double" all 

 around, i. e. the corners of'those of the upper and lower jaws were 

 worn off square and did not overlap. 



In the rather large lower jaw he was reminded of the figure of the 

 "fossil jaw" of "prehistoric man," and the speaker alluded to the 

 famous controversy between the French and English savans, rega-rd- 

 ing the human jaw (lower maxillary), discovered by a quarry-man 

 working in the gravel-pit at Moulin Quignon, France, and brought to 

 the notice of M. Boucher de Perthes, "the pioneer and representative 

 of modern archaeology," who " withdrew from the ground with his 

 , own hands the entire half of a human jaw, having the second molar in 

 position." " Near the jaw were found a hatchet, two other teeth, and 

 a portion of a fourth," and afterwards the teeth of the mammoth were 

 picked up in a bed overlying that containing the jaw. It was con- 

 cluded that the possessor lived in the " stone age," and was coeval 

 with the mammoth. 



Drs. Falconer and Bush, of London, disputed the alleged antiquity of 

 the bone. The majority, however, allege that the jaw, from its anom- 

 alous shape, belonged to a man of a different race from ours. Many 

 archaeologists refer all the bones and implements of the stone age to 

 a very degraded race, lower than any savage tribes known to exist in 

 Europe or Asia; others refer them to races like the Esquimaux, and 

 assume that the Esquimaux were the first inhabitants of Europe. 

 The speculations already published would fill volumes. 



Dr. Harrison Allen, of Philadelphia, in the last number of the " Den- 

 tal Cosmos," gives a more conservative view of the "jaw" question, 

 saying, " certainly in the present state of our knowledge, it would be 

 rash to assign the Abbeyville man to ' another ' race, or, indeed, to any 

 particular race, by the meagre evidence left us in a fragment of his 

 jaw." 



Dr. Packard questioned whether the antiquity of the gravel deposits 

 containing the remains of prehistoric man in Europe, and the intensi- 

 ty of the climate of that period have not been exaggerated by writers, 

 judging from the age and condition of our own river gravels, and fi'om 

 what must have been the climate of the Lake Period in North Amer- 

 ica, which could not have been much colder than that of Northern 

 New England two hundred years ago. The " Lake Period" overlapped 

 the Historic Period, and was not signalized by such a degree of Green- 



