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NOTE ON BONES DREDGED FKOAE THE RIVEK WE.1E. 



IV. — Note on Bones dredged from the Bed of the River Wear in 

 1872. By D. Embleton, M.D. 



Requested by Mr. Gr. S. Brady to inspect a quantity of bones 

 and horns dredged from the bed of the river above Sunderland, 

 by the Biver Wear Commissioners during the last twelve months, 

 I went down on the 17th January, 1873, and in company with 

 Mr. Brady, visited the offices of the Commissioners, where the 

 bones had been deposited. 



There were in all about twenty -five specimens, of brown 

 colour, and well preserved. They were probably only a part of 

 what had been brought up from time to time by the dredger 

 from a depth of from fifteen to twenty feet below the ordinary 

 level of the river bed at the entrance of Hylton Dene. 



There were two imperfect human crania wanting the lower 

 jaws; the frontal half of one was absent, the other had the cal- 

 varium pretty perfect above. The latter was that of a young 

 adult, about twenty-five years of age ; the former, of which the 

 lower part of the occiput was small, had belonged to a person 

 beyond the middle age. There was nothing else remarkable as 

 to the size or shape of these crania. 



Two crania, wanting the lower jaw, of a rather small dog, 

 with large spaces for the temporal muscles ; the molar teeth of 

 one had lost fragments of their enamel, perhaps during the gnaw- 

 ing of hard bones : those of the other were perfect. 



One cranium of an old goat, the cores of the horns entire, the 

 muscular impressions strongly marked. 



Four imperfect crania of the Bed Deer (two of the hind, and 

 two of the stag) — one of these was large and strong, and had the 

 right antler truncated, attached to the skull, but not very firmly ; 

 the other was absent, and it was thus evident that the animal 

 had come by his death near about the time of the shedding of 

 the horns — the spring of the year. 



Several horns, more or less imperfect, of the Bed Deer. One 

 imperfect cranium seemed to be that of a Boar. Three imper- 

 fect and probably young crania of the Bos longifrons, the top and 



