§43. FOSSIL HUMAN SKELETONS. 87 



a bed of recent limestone forms a sloping bank, from the 

 steep cliffs of the island to the sea, and is nearly all sub- 

 merged at high tides. This modern rock is composed 

 of consolidated sand, and comminuted shells and corals of 

 species now inhabiting the adjacent seas: land shells, frag- 

 ments of pottery, stone arrow-heads, carved stone and 

 wooden ornaments, and human skeletons, are occasionally 

 found imbedded in it. This being the first known un- 

 doubted example of the occurrence of human bones in solid 

 limestone, excited great attention ; and the fact, simple and 

 self-evident as is its explanation, was made the founda- 

 tion of many vague and absurd hypotheses. 



In most instances the bones are dispersed ; but a large 

 slab of rock, in which a considerable portion of the ske- 

 leton of a female is imbedded, is preserved in the British 

 Museum, and has been described by Mr. Konig, in a highly 

 interesting memoir, published in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions of 1814. The annexed representation (Lign. 11) 

 will convey an idea of this celebrated relic, which was de- 

 tached from the rock at the Mole, near Point- a-Pitre. 



In this specimen the skull is wanting, but the spinal 

 column, many of the ribs, the bones of the left arm and 

 hand, of the pelvis, and of the thighs and legs, remain. 

 The bones still contain some animal matter, and the whole 

 of their phosphate of lime. It is remarkable, that the frag- 

 ments of the skull of this very specimen have recently been 

 purchased for the museum at South Carolina, of a French 

 naturalist, who brought them from Guadaloupe ; and they 

 have been described by Professor Moultrie, of the Medical 

 College of that State. These relics consist of portions of 

 the temporal, parietal, frontal, sphenoidal, and inferior 

 maxillary bones, of the right side of the skull. An entire 

 skeleton was also discovered in the usual position of burial; 

 and another, in a sitting posture, in a softer sandstone. 

 The bodies, thus differently situated, may have belonged to 



