^6 ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF 



with a calcareous matter *. The human hones found near Koestriz, 

 and pointed out by M. de Schlotheim, were said to have been extracted 

 from very ancient beds ; but this respectable naturalist is desirous of 

 making known how much the assertion is still a matter of doubt f. It 

 is the same with articles of human manufacture. The fragments of 

 iron found at Montmartre are points of the tools which the workmen 

 employ in blasting, and which sometimes break in the stone J. 



A report has been spread for several months of certain human frag- 



* These skeletons, more or less mutilated, are found near Pont du Moule, at the 

 north-west coast of the high land of Guadeloupe, in a kind of slope resting on the 

 steep hank of the island, -which the water in a great measure covers at high tide, and 

 which is only a tufa formed and daily increased by the very small particles of shells 

 and corals which the sea wears away from the rocks, the whole mass of which coheres 

 very firmly in those parts which are most frequently left dry. Vs r e find, with the aid of 

 a magnifying glass, that many of these fragments have the same red tint as a portion 

 of the corals contained in the reefs of the island. These sorts of formation are common 

 in all the Archipelago of the Antilles, and are called by the negroes mafonne-hon-dieu. 

 Their accumulation is the more rapid in proportion as the sea is more violent. They 

 have extended the plain of the Cayes to San Domingo, whose situation is somewhat 

 similar to that of the Plage du Moule, and sometimes fragments of vessels of human 

 workmanship are found at a depth of twenty feet from the surface. A thousand con- 

 jectures have been made, and events have even been imagined to account for these 

 skeletons of Guadeloupe ; but, after all these circumstances, M. Moreau de Jonn^s, 

 corresponding member of the Academy of Science, who has visited the place, and to 

 whom I am indebted for all this detail, is of opinion that they are only the carcases of 

 persons who have been shipwrecked. They were discovered in 1805, by M. Manual 

 Cortes y Campomanes, at that time a staff-officer in the service of that colony. Gen- 

 eral Ernouf, the governor, had one extracted with much care. It wanted the head 

 and nearly all the upper extremities ; it was left at Guadeloupe, with hopes of getting 

 one more complete, in order to send the two to Paris ; but when the island was taken 

 by the English, admiral Cochrane, having found this skeleton at head quarters, sent 

 it to the English Admiralty, who presented it to the British Museum. It is now in 

 that collection, and M. Kcenig, keeper of the mineralogical department, described it 

 in the Philosophical Transactions of 1S14, and I saw it there in 1818. M. Kcenig 

 remarks, that the stone in which it is imbedded has not been cut, but seems to have 

 been simply inserted as a distinct kernel in the surrounding mass. The skeleton is 

 so superficial that its presence must have been visible from the projection of some of 

 the bones. They still contain some of the animal matter, and the uhole of their phos- 

 phate of lime. 1 he rock, entire]}' composed of parcels of coral and compact lime- 

 stone, is easily dissolved in nitric acid. M. Kcenig has detected fragments of the 

 millepora miniacea of some madrepores and shells, which he compares to the helix 

 acuta and turbo pica. More recently, General Denzelothas extracted another of these 

 skeletons, now in the cabinet of the king, of which we give an engraving. 



It is a body with bent knees. A portion of the upper jaw is still left, the left half 

 of the lower, nearly all one side of the trunk and pelvis, and a great part of the upper 

 and lower left extremities. The rock is certainly travertine, in which are imbedded 

 shells of the neighbouring sea and land shells, which still exist in the island, and 

 which are known as the bulimus Guadahtpensis of Ferrussac. 



f See Le Traite des Petrifactions of M. de Schlotheim, Gotha, 1820, p. 57; and 

 his letter in the Isis, of 1820, 8th No., Suppl. No. 6, 



X It is perhaps necessary to make some mention of the fragments of sand stone, 

 of which some talk has been made these several years (from 1824), in which a man 

 and horse vrere said to have been found petrified. The very fact of its being a man 

 and horse, with the flesh and skin, which must have been visible, was sufficient to in- 

 form the whole world that it was a lusus natwce, and not a real petrifaction. 



