280 The Fossil Human Skeleton from Guadaloupe. 



THE FOSSIL HUMAN SKELETON FROM 

 GUADALOUPE. 



Letter of Admieal Sir Alexander Cochrane respecting the 

 Fossil Human Skeleton, from Guadaloupe, now in the 

 British, Museum. Communicated by S. P. Woodward, 

 F.G.S. 



The following document seems never to have been printed, 

 and is not so much as mentioned by Mr. Charles Kcenig, in 

 his letter to Sir Joseph Banks, published in the Philosophical 

 Transactions of the Royal Society (vol. civ. p. 107, 1814). Never- 

 theless it appears to be worth preserving, not only because 

 it is the narrative of the most important person concerned in 

 the acquisition of this celebrated fossil, but inasmuch as it 

 corrects several slight inaccuracies in the popular versions 

 of the discovery, and suggests some considerations which have 

 been overlooked by all other writers. 



The occurrence of fossil skeletons at Guadaloupe was first 

 noticed in 1805, by M. Manuel Cortes y Campomanes, an 

 officer of the French government. They w^ere described by 

 General Ernouf, governor of the colony, in a letter to M. 

 Faujas Saint-Fond {Annates du Museum, vol. v. 1805), and 

 afterwards by M. Lavaisse, in his Voyage a la Trinidad (1813). 

 Ernouf sa}'S that on that part of the windward (or north-east) 

 side of the Grande-Terre, called La Moule, skeletons are found 

 enveloped in ' c masses de madrepores petrifies/'' very hard, and 

 situated within the line of high water. M. Lavaisse adds that 

 the bed with human skeletons is nearly an English mile in 

 length ; and that he found in it hatchets and other implements, 

 made of a basaltic or porphyritic rock, as well as bones. No 

 mention is made of pottery. 



It appears then that the skeletons were not found " on the 

 main-land of Guadaloupe," as represented by Dr. Mantell and 

 Sir C. Lyell, but on the adjoining island of Grande-Terre, 

 which is separated indeed by a very narrow channel. It is 

 described as a flat limestone country, consisting chiefly of the 

 debris of corals, with here and there single hills of shell- lime- 

 stone ; while Guadaloupe, properly so called, is entirely 

 volcanic. 



The block of stone brought home b} r Admiral Cochrane 

 was originally of a flattened oval form, about a foot and a half 

 in thickness, and weighed nearly two tons. There were no 

 marks of the tool upon it except the few holes evidently made 

 to assist in raising the block, and it had very much the appear- 

 ance of a huge nodule disengaged from a surrounding mass. 

 The situation of the skeleton in the block was so superficial, 



