174 APPENDIX. 



from the steepness of the shore. It is believed that these waters de- 

 posit stalactites, like those of Tivoli ; for the stone is a Travertine, 

 resembling much that of Rome. The skeleton was not entirely en- 

 veloped in it ; but it Avas only from some parts jutting from the 

 back that we were assured of its presence. U'hen it arrived, only 

 some portions of the spine, arm, and femur, were perceptible. Our 

 chisel has brought all to view; and we have, at the same time, de- 

 tached some small shells, similarly incrusted as the skeleton. Some 

 are univalved, belonging to the fresh-water species, and other kinds 

 known on the island; the others are small bivalved marine shells com- 

 mon on the coast. It is evident that the first have been drifted 

 by the streams, the others by the waves, and that the stone which 

 envelops them is of recent formation. Its upper portion was more 

 soft than the rest, and in proportion as it was penetrated it possessed 

 more solidity. The block, says M. Lherminier, rested on arena- 

 ceous chalk, which afforded facilities for its extraction. This sort of 

 gravel stone is likewise modern, because there have been found in 

 several masses of it in the same en^drons, teeth of the caiman, se- 

 veral fragments of Caralean pottery, hatchets made of stone, and par- 

 ticularly a small piece of wood, very hard and black, representing on 

 one side a mask •\'ery rudely sculptured, and on the other an enormous 

 frog, extended and plainly engraved. It was gaiac wood, but had 

 become hard and black as jet. 



M. Lherminier sent with the block a great number of incrustations 

 formed on shells and madrepores, which strongly prove that the waters 

 which pour over these parts of the bank are disposed to form gravel, 

 stone, or stalactites. 



A human head of monstrous thickness, engraved in the Oryctology 

 of Argenville, Plate xvii, and described since in a special dissertation, 

 by M. Jadelot, has also been presented as a fossil, and as belonging to 

 a different race of the human species ; but one equally resembling it 

 has been found in the Archbishopric of Munster, the particulars of 

 which M. de Soemmering has made known, and a model of which has 

 been communicated by M. Schleyermacher. I have read to the Aca- 

 demy of Sciences a memoir on these heads, in which I have not only 

 adopted and confirmed the opinion of M. de Soemmering and other 

 medical men, that they have been deformed by some species of disease 

 of the bone, called maladie ebumee ; but also from the state of den- 

 tition, I have established that they were the heads of children of that age 

 when they begin to change their teeth. 



