616 HUMAN JAW AND FLIXT-IMPLEMEXTS 



of the coating, and by sandy particles. One important part 

 of the intrinsic evidence still remained to be determined, 

 namely, the chemical analysis of the bone ; but the Conference 

 was too pressed for time to wait for it, and the recent charac- 

 ters were in other respects so pronounced, that no one thought 

 of urging the point. The opinion expressed by Professor Busk, 

 after his examination of the bone was completed, was ' that 

 the bone is of considerable but not of very high antiquity, 

 and that it presents no character which may not be found in 

 cemetery bones.' ' Professor Busk's long study of, and well 

 known familiarity with, the subject invest his opinion on this 

 point with the stamp of authority. The jaw was compared 

 on the one hand with a specimen in the possession of Professor 

 Busk, derived from a Gallo-Roman cemetery, near Amiens, 

 from which it differed chiefly in being a little more altered, 

 and in the latter showing no layer of sand lining the dental 

 canal, when sawn across. On the other hand, it was com- 

 pared with a very remarkable lower jaw, found in a coprolite 

 pit near Ipswich, and now belonging to Dr. Robert Collyer, 

 which, although retaining a portion of its gelatine, is infil- 

 trated through and through with iron. The section of the 

 cortical layer is dark ; oxide of iron is seen filling the Ha- 

 versian canals ; a dark crust of the same metal cover the 

 walls of the cancelli ; coarse grains of sand, with red oxide 

 of iron, line the walls of the dental canal ; and a vertical sec- 

 tion of one of the fangs of a molar shows that the dentine is 

 partly infiltrated with iron. The precise age of the Ipswich 

 jaw is not known, but it is conjectured not to exceed that of 

 the Roman occupation of England. Mr. Busk bas ascertained, 

 since the Conference, that part of a human pelvis and other 

 bones, belonging to two bodies, in the collection of M. Boucher 

 de Perthes, and inferred by Mr. Prestwich and Mr. Evans to 

 have been interred in an open trench in the gravel below 

 the Loess, near Mesnieres, probably during the early part of 

 the Celtic period, were all more or less marked with dendrites. 

 The Moulin-Quignon jaw, although reported to have been 

 yielded by a deposit of mangano-ferruginous earth, presented 

 the remarkable and exceptional phenomenon of being abso- 

 lutely free from metallic infiltration or dendritic patches. 

 Those who are conversant with fossil bones will not readily 

 believe that the age of the individual, probably above sixty 

 years, and the density of the bone this implied, constituted 

 an adequate cause of resistance to the process. That bones 

 are very susceptible of staining and infiltration by metallic 

 matter, even during the act of maceration, is well known. Nor 



1 Copied verbatim from Dr. Carpenter's notes of the proceedings, taken at the 

 time. 



