352 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



lites (?), or more probably fossil fruit ; also a very rude earthenware 

 vessel, in size about a pint and half, and a human skull, which Dr. 

 Beevor pronounces to be that of a female. What is very lemarkable, 

 he says the organs of caution and firmness were very largely deve- 

 loped, and the forehead was lofty, evidently betokening a high degree 

 of intellectual power. Now this is the most important thing in the 

 whole matter, because it clashes so discordantly with the theory that 

 man of the flint-implement period of the " drift" was so low in the 

 scale as necessarily to come in between the gorilla and the negro. 

 Alas ! for the theory, if this, the only human bone yet found, so flatly 

 contradicts it.* We can still exclaim with Burns, that 



" A man's a man for a' that." 



And furthermore, let the grand saying ot Terence ring in our ears : 



" Homo sum, nihil humanum a me alienum pnto !" 



And it will come out, I believe, clearer and clearer that through no 

 " natural selection" in the " struggle for existence," can man by any 

 means be a splendid development of* some anterior existence refer- 

 able back to the monad, thence to the combination of certain ele- 

 ments, and so on backwards ad infinitum. 



Francis Drake. 



FOSSIL DEER'S HORN AT CLACTON, SHOWING MARKS 

 OF HUMAN OPERATIONS. 



By Rev. 0. Fisher, F.G.S., of Elmstead, Colchester. 



Dr. Bree, the well-known naturalist and author of " Species not 

 Transmutable," has kindly entrusted to my care a very interesting 

 specimen, bearing with much force upon the question of the anti- 

 quity of the human race. It is the base of an antler of the red- deer, 

 showing umni st ake able evidences of human operations upon it The 

 specimen was dredged up about two months ago off Clacton, in Essex, 

 in the course of dredging for cement-stones. Dr. Bree has a por- 

 tion of the tusk of a mastodon (?) and some fish-bones and teeth, 

 apparently derived from the red crag, from the same source. The 

 spot is two miles from the shore, and is called " The Wallet." 



The horn in question was not shed, but has a portion of the bone 

 of the skull adhering to it. It has been chopped away from the skull, 

 showing a clear, mark or cut on each side. But this is the least 

 remarkable feature. The most interesting point is that the three 

 bl anches of the horn have been sawn off with perfectly clean cuts per- 

 pendicularly to their axes, the polished surfaces of the sections being 



