216 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



siiperoccipital bone. This character, the " 05 Inc(2,'' was first 

 observed by Dr. Bellamy, in the skulls of the early Peruvians. Prof. 

 Tschudi* considered it *as a mark of the primeval distinction of the 

 Peruvian race, the skulls of which, according to him, manifested this 

 alleged " embryonic character" as in the lower mammalia. Morton 

 observed it in a Chimu (called by him Chimuyan), and in a Cayuga 

 skull. In the British Museum is a large handsome skull, belonging 

 to the " Chincha " type, in which the interparietal bone is manifest. 

 In Mr. Edward Gerrard's most useful and valuable catalogue, recently 

 published, the locality is marked as from Pasadama (^^ e. Pachacamac), 

 near Lima. 



In the collection of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, on No. 5711 (a 

 Laplander), Prof Owen remarks, " the suture between the exoccipital 

 and supraoccipital is retained on the right side, and partially so on 

 the left." Here, however, there are numerous "Wormian bones in 

 the lambdoidal suture. On No. 5390 (a New Zealander), he says, 

 " the upper half of the supraoccipital has been developed as an inter- 

 parietal from a separate centre, and has united by a complex dentated 

 suture with the lower half of the supraoccipital." A similar confor- 

 mation exists in a skull from the E-oman burial-place at Pelixstow, 

 preserved in the Anatomical Museum at Cambridge,! and in the 

 cranium of a Bengalee. The law which regulates the repetition of 

 similar characters in skulls of nations aboriginally distinct is termed 

 by Prof J. Aitken Meigs,]: of Philadelphia, " homoiokephalic represen- 

 tation." Analogous congenital varieties or imperfections may he seen 

 in almost every ethnic type. Dr. Williamson has described them in 

 the Albanian, Singhalese, Timmani, Kosso, Krooman, Fanti, Ashantee, 

 Calabar, Burmese (Malay), and Esquimaux; whilst in the Limbu 

 tribe from Nepal, an instance has been described by Prof. Owen, in 

 which the " interparietal " is divided into three distinct qimsi-sjm- 

 metrical portions. Dr. Spencer Cobbold has seen a true inter- 

 parietal boue in a skull in the Edinburgh Museum ; and I have 

 recently observed it in a skull belonging to the Ethnological 

 Society's collection, of which I am not yet satisfied as to the precise 

 nation to which it belonged. 



A cursory examiuation of the bones found with the human skull, at 

 the Valley of the Trent, has afforded to me evidence of Bos longifrons, 

 Bos primif/enius, stag, wolf, goat, and horse. Some of the horn cores 

 of Bos longifrons appeared to me to be more curved than usual, but 

 tlie majority exhibited the normal form. 



llratherij Bum Cave, near Stanhope. — I refrain intentionally from 

 ofTering any remarks on the human remains discovered in this cave, 

 as the geological conditions under which they were found have been 

 ably detailed by Mr. Elliott, and the human skull will be described 

 by Prof. Huxley.§ The condition of the mammalian remains from 



* Hivrro and Tschiidi, ' Aiitigucdadcs Peruanas.' f Davis and Thuruam, p. 29. 



t iMcigs, 'Description of a Fragnieiitarv llumau Skull from Jerusalem.' 8vo. Philad. 

 p. 279. 



§ Sec p. ^01 oflliis niuiibor.- -Kii. Geol. 



