THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
: VoL. xix.— AUGUST, 1885.—No. 8. 
NOTICE OF SOME HUMAN REMAINS FOUND NEAR 
| THE CITY OF MEXICO. 
BY MARIANO DE LA BARCENA, 
N the month of January, 1884, some excavations were being 
made, by means of dynamite, at the foot of the small hill 
known as “ Peñon de los Baños,’ some four kilometers east of the 
City of Mexico. The excavations were made with the object of 
quarrying building stone for the Military Shooting School which 
is being constructed near the Pefion and under the supervision of 
Colonel Don Adolfo Obregon. This gentleman, at the beginning 
of January, was informed that among the rocks loosened by the 
dynamite some bones were to be found, and he accordingly col- 
lected and delivered them to the Minister of Public Works, Don 
Carlos Pacheco, who appointed the writer to make a study of 
them. The preliminary examination being made, I presented 
them to the Mexican Society of Natural History, giving at the 
same time public notice of so important a discovery. 
Some days afterwards I explored the formation in which the 
bones were found, continuing my studies with the coöperation of 
Don Antonio del Castillo, professor of geology, whom I invited 
to take part in my investigations ; both making upa n which 
has lately been published in Mexico. 
The human remains are firmly imbedded in a rock formed of 
silicified calcareous tufa, very hard and of a brownish-gray color. 
The cranium with the lower and upper maxille and fragments of 
the collar-bone, vertebrz, ribs and bones from the upper and 
lower limbs are exposed. The bones lie in disorder, proving 
that the rock in which the ongoing was found suffered an up- 
VOL, XIX.—NO. VIII. 
