CORHESPONDENCE. 



200 



at the same level as the human skeleton has not been identified with any 

 recent or extinct species ; likewise that the depth in the mud or loam (live 

 feet thick in all) in which the skeleton was found has not been recorded. 



A priori probability would lead biologists to infer that pithecoid man 

 first existed on this planet; but in the present stage of the controversy it 

 is, in my opinion, most hazardous to frame a table on the mere probability 

 of a fact. Yours very truly, 



C. Carter Blake. 



The Portland Fissures ivith Human Remains. 



Sir, — Will you allow me to make some remarks on the letter of Mr. 

 Jicks in the 'Geologist' of this mouth, in which he seems to doubt the 

 correctness of the facts which I mentioned in my letter in the ' Geologist ' 

 of last month, that the remains of man and of extinct mammalia have been 

 found mingled together in fissures of the rock of Portland Island, which 

 fissures do not extend to the surface of the rock ? 



The whole question depends, of course, on the nature of evidence which 

 I produced of the truth of these facts. My first evidence was the testi- 

 mony of the writer of an article in ' Willis's Current Notes ' for the month 

 of August, 1852, who had himself visited Captain Manning, at Portland 

 Castle. He states expressly — on the authority, of course, of Captain Man- 

 ning — that on several of the ledges, in the fissures of the Portland rock, 

 which do not extend to the surface-soil by 5 or 10 feet, a number of 

 bones of all kinds of animals have been found, including those of the human 

 species. The truth of this statement has been in the fullest manner con- 

 firmed to me by Captain Manning himself, who showed me, at the Castle, 

 his collection of bones, which were those of men, the elk, the reindeer, the 

 elephant, etc. He said that the fissures in which they were found did not 

 extend to the surface of the rock. He also said, what is stated in ' Willis's 

 Current Notes,' that Dr. Buckland, who visited him at the Castle, being 

 first attracted to the island by the discovery of a fossil boar's head, having 

 doubts as to the place where the bones were found, accompanied him to 

 the fissure, where a lad was let down, who brought up more of the bones 

 in his presence. 



The next evidence which I produced was an article in the ' Times ' of 

 the 1st of last January, relating to the fortifications recently built in 

 Portland Island. The article states that in these fissures, " commencing 

 about 20 feet below the surface of the ground, human bones have been 

 found w ith those of wild boars, and horns of reindeer, not fossilized, but 

 with all their osseous structure as perfect as if they were not fifty years 

 old." The high preservation of these bones proves that they must have 

 remained entirely excluded from the air from the time that they entered 

 the limestone formation to the period of I heir discovery. 



Can the facts which 1 have mentioned be disproved, — that human and 

 mammalian hones have been found in fissures oi the Portland rock, which 

 do nol extend to the surface of the rock? If these tacts are true, which 

 may be easily ascertained by any person's visiting the island, they prove, 

 beyond a doubt, that the human and mammalian hones must have been 

 embedded in the rock before its consolidation, and consequently, inn the 

 men and animals to whom they belonged must have inhabited Borne other 

 dryland, probably now destroyed. 



Again, what can explain the association in the fissures of the bones of 

 the reindeer, an arctic animal. \\ iili those of a tropical animal, the elephant, 



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