JUNE 27, 1884.] 
I should do so, as Mr. Holmes has discussed 
somewhat fully these designs in the second 
annual report of the Bureau of ethnology. 
But I may add that these figured copper plates 
and engraved shells present a problem very 
difficult to solve, as is evident from the follow- 
ing facts : — | 
1°. A number of the designs bear too strong 
resemblance to those of Mexico and Central 
America to warrant us in supposing this simi- 
larity to be accidental. 2°. The indications of 
European workmanship are too evident to be 
overlooked. 3°. The fact that some of them 
were found in connection with articles of 
European manufacture is unquestionable. 4°. 
The evidence that some , 
of the engraved shells 
ean be traced to the In- 
dians is well-nigh conclu- 
sive. 
Mr. Rogan sank a 
large shaft, seventeen 
feet square, to the bot- 
tom of the second mound 
(marked B in Jones’s 
plate, and also in Col. 
Whittlesey’s figure). No 
burials or objects of in- 
terest were found in it, 
except the remains of 
four posts, extending four 
feet below the surface, 
placed in the form of a 
parallelogram, two feet 
one way, and six feet the 
other. The strata were 
as follows: first, a_ bot- 
tom layer of white sand 
two feet thick; next, 
between nine and ten feet 
of dark red clay; then 
two feet more of white 
sand ; and, lastly, a top 
layer of some six or seven feet of dark sandy 
loam. 
Mr. Rogan found in one of the small, low 
mounds east of the large one (those marked 
FF on Jones’s plate), the fragment of a stone 
image. This fragment, which shows most of 
the form of the bust, is represented in our 
fig. 11. Itis made of a coarse white marble: 
and the part shown in the figure is ten inches 
and three-quarters long ; the length of the head, 
seven inches and a fifth; and width of the 
head, five inches and three-quarters. The face 
is entirely wanting, and from appearance, I 
judge, was broken off designedly. 
Cyrus THOMAS. 
SCIENCE. 785 
A HUMAN SKULL FROM THE LOESS OF 
PODBABA, NEAR PRAGUE.} 
AMONG collections of bones from the diluvium of 
the vicinity of Prague, human skulls are often found. 
From the color of the earth adhering to them, how- 
ever, it is evident that they come from graves of the 
stone and bronze age, which here frequently occur 
in the top layer of the loess deposit, and are filled 
with dark loam. I also once received a normal skull 
found at a great depth in a lime-kiln at Tyrolka, not 
far from Prague, but in such relations that the over- 
lying strata were presumed to have obtained their 
present position from a slide down the steep sides of 
the valley. 
In the winter of 1883 some workmen brought me 
numerous bones of the reindeer, the rhinoceros, and 
Fie. 1.— LATERAL VIEW OF HUMAN SKULL, FROM DELUVIAL CLAY NEAR PRAGUE (ONE- 
HALF NATURAL SIZE.) 
the mammoth, from the clay behind the brewery at 
Podbaba, and, on the 30th of November, the remains 
of a human skull. After carefully putting together 
the newly broken parts, a skull was apparent, the re- 
markably depressed shape of the forehead of which 
must surprise every one. As this came from the 
same strata as the bones of ancient mammals ob- 
tained from this place, I immediately went there in 
order to determine more definitely the state of things. 
The skull was found by a workman named Hlavaty, 
in undisturbed brick-clay (loess) two metres thick, 
lying under one metre of dense loam, and at the same 
level at which, about a week previously, I had ob- 
tained the tusk of a mammoth. 
1 Abstract of a communication to the Bohemian society of 
sciences, by Dr. ANTON FRITSCH. 
