NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 663 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 
Tue Fratrest Tigra on Recorp.—In the Fourth Annual Re- 
port of the Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Eth- 
nology (1871), reference is made (pp. 21, 22,) to a certain 
tibia obtained by me with other similar relics, in 1869, from an 
ancient mound on the River Rouge in Michigan. It is mentioned 
as the most extreme case of the flattening of this bone, the trans- 
verse being only 0.48 of the fore and aft diameter. Tibis from 
mounds in other parts of the country give the extent of this flat- 
tening as 0.60; and in the “‘most marked case mentioned by 
Broca, viz., in the old man from Cro-Magnon” (France), it was 
0.60.—But I have lately met with several cases presenting this 
flatness in even a greater extreme ; and I have now in my posses- 
sion two tibiæ, evidently of great antiquity, taken from a mound 
on the Detroit River, in one of which the short is 0.42 of the long 
diameter, and in the other only 0.40. This last, therefore, may be 
considered as the flattest tibia on record. In both, the bone is 
curved, being remarkably convex forwards. A large amount of 
the most interesting relics of the ancient mound-builders was as- 
sociated with these bones, which were selected from among the 
remains of eleven human bodies. Some of these relics give evi- 
dence of the identity of this race with those of the ‘ancient 
miners” of Lake Superior, or, at least, of their intercourse ; others 
give evidence of traffic with the southern races— perhaps along 
the Gulf of Mexico. In all of the mounds along the Detroit River 
and its tributary the River Rouge, I find a large majority of the 
tibie presenting this flattening. This appears to be an exception 
to the facts as noted in other parts of the country where the flat- 
tening has been estimated as pertaining to “ only about one-third 
of all the individuals observed.” Here a tibia not flattened is 
the exception. And I would further state that where this bone is 
found approximating to the equilateral, it is manifestly of subse- 
quent burial, and of much later date. This region, at the junction 
of the Detroit and Rouge rivers, was known formerly as “the Par- 
adise of the Indians,” and they TONN congregated here in 
large numbers. 
Prof. Wyman’s interesting comparison of the mound-builders 
with the ancient races of Europe, in which the flattening of the 
tibia was one of the peculiarities, as also his allusions to the same 
