173 

 On Human Fossil Bones. 



(Additions to pages 74 — 77, &c.) 



I HAVE already said that human bones, regarded as fossils^ have only 

 been fovind in recent or newly deposited formations, in clefts, ancient 

 galleries of mines, or, in short, among stalactites ; but that none 

 exist in regular beds, not even in those which contaiu bones of the 

 elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. 



^I. D'Hombre Firmas, Mayor of Alais, has presented to the Academy 

 of Sciences a very interesting memoir relating to a cavern in the environs 

 of Durfort, near Alais, known in the country by the name of Baume (or 

 grotto) de& morts, and where man}'- human skeletons are incrusted with 

 stalagmite. The Abbe Dicquemare had previously written a similar 

 on^, of the environs of Havre, in the Journal de Physiques of 1775), 

 torn, ii, p. 302. These are depositories into which has been thrown, 

 under urgent circumstances, such as a day of battle, a great number 

 of bodies., 



Mr. Buckland, who saw in the Grotto of Pavyland a skeleton of a 

 female, and many works of art, has well described^ in his excellent 

 work, Reliquia Diluviance, how these modern objects have become 

 intermingled with the ancient deposites. 



We have already described, after M. Koenig, the human skeleton 

 that is in the British Museum, which was detached from a rock 

 on the coast of Guadeloupe, at a place called The Mole, near Point- 

 a-Pitre. Since then, by the orders of the Marquis of Clermont- 

 Tonnerre, and by the exertions of M. Lherminier, a learned naturalist 

 of Basse Terre, Guadeloupe, there has been sent to the cabinet 

 of the king of France a skeleton from the same place, and incrusted 

 in the like manner. This skeleton is more perfect ; it has a part of 

 the two jaw-bones, all the spine viewed posteriorly, a great portion of 

 the basin, the ribs of the left side, all the left superior member, with 

 the fingers only a little disordered, and the thigh and the leg of the 

 same side. The spine has the appearance of an arc, and the thigh is 

 ent up as if the individual was in a squatting position. Unfortu- 

 nately, the upper part of the head is wanting ; and so much so, that 

 it is difficult to determine the race from whence it came, but no doubt 

 exists as to the nature of the incrustation in which it is embedded. It 

 was found in a spot where it seems there are several others, but in- 

 accessible on account of the sea, which perpetually covers it, and pro- 

 bably from the waters of the island, whig^Jiave «. defeg^mination here, 



