NOTES AND QUEHTES. 



425 



on the discovery. It is, however, possible that it may be at least as ancient 

 as some of the other crania, e.ff. the one from Mewslade, to which I have 

 already referred. 



I have Professor Eusk's permission to su])join the following extract of 

 his notes on the Kcllct skull :— 



Qth Augufit. — "If the fissure in question were open from the top, it may 

 be asked, why did not the body fall, or be introduced into it that way ? 

 Except from concomitant circumstances, and, in some cases, perhaps their 

 chemical condition, I do not think much can be predicated of ;) sitij^le skull, 

 at any rate w^ith respect to its af(e, from its form alone. The Mewslade 

 skull, also found in a limestone fissure, but with many very ancient animal 

 remains, undoubtedly its contemporaries, is not, as you are aware, of the 

 rounded type, like the Scandinavian and Scottish stone-age crania, but 

 moderately dolichoceplialic, and flat, or rather straight, along the summit. 

 I have not seen the Etruscan skull you mention, but presume it to be, as 

 you hint, brachycephahc. If so, the Kellet skull will not resemble the 

 Mewslade and several of the river-bed skulls, which, there is reason to 

 believe, are properly of a later population than the brachycephahc. " 



IWi August. — " It is rather a curious form, being, as you say, strongly 

 brachycephalic (about 850), and so far it corresponds with the Scandinavian 

 stone men ; but in other respects it differs very widely from them, being in 

 the first place far more capacious, and very wide, especially in the frontal re- 

 gion, remarkably even in contour, and with a look altogether of higher breed- 

 ing. The superciliary arches are thin and fine, totally unlike the beetle 

 brows of the old Danes ; and the remains of the ossa nasi show that he 

 had a prominent, thin, and, may be, aquiline nose. The lower jaw is 

 light in comparison, and the angle prominent, as is common, I believe, in 

 v,hat are termed the Homan crania by Davis and Thurnam. On the 

 ■w hole, I am inclined to refer it to a much later period than the stone, 

 notwithstanding the fossilized condition of the bones ; but it would be 

 very interesting to find some articles with it. . . . The shape at vertex is 

 flattened, and not so pyramidal as the true stone skulls. 



'*I am yours truly, 



"Geo. Busk." 



It is, of course, hardly necessary to say that I coincide entirely in these 

 observations ; and do not doubt that my readers will be pleased to hear 

 that a decade of " Priscan crania " is now completed, and will shortly be 

 published by Professor Busk, in addition to his magnificent ' Crania 

 Typica.' 



I am also indebted to Professor Busk, F.E.S., for the beautiful and ac- 

 curate outline of the Kellet skull, taken in four different aspects ; and to 

 Mr. S. J. Mackie, F.G.S., for the drawings of the frontal bone (B) from 

 Heathery Burn, and the Leicester skull, referred to by me in the ' Geolo- 

 gist,' vol. V. p. 313. The Kellet skull will be ultimately deposited in the 

 Ethnological Society's collection. — Charles Caeter Blake. 



Human Remains tn Eiver Beds. — Sir, — No better proof can be given 

 of the accuracy of the observations in your comments on the Geologist's 

 Association (' Geologist,' vol. v. p. 320) that the geology of the neigh- 

 bourhood of London affords many yet unexplored topics of interest, than 

 the following scattered fticts : — 



John Hunter, writing about the year 1793, quotes a letter which he had 

 received from Sir James Hall, of Scotland, dated Rome, February 24th, 

 1785. 



In this letter a hill is described that lies about three miles from Rome, 

 in the road to Loretto. " It is about 3(K) or 400 yards beyond an old 

 VOL. V. 3 I 



