NOTES AT^D QUEllIKS. 



427 



in the Antiquities Department of tlie Bi-itisli Mnseiim, ])y Mr. Franks, 

 wliicli were derived from the bed of tlie Thames, at Battersea. I have 

 not yet been able to g'ive them the attention which tliey merit, bat sliall 

 compare them Avith the I^ast I]aiii, ivCllcl,, and Leicester skulls, which 

 they resemble more than tliey do Hu; S(MnieD, Borris, Blaekwater, Mu.sk- 

 ham, etc., series of true " river-bed " skulls. 



I trust that all furtliei'* evidences of human bones or works that may 

 occur in or near London will be carefully recorded, and that above all, 

 whenever there are (jeolorjical evidences of antic[uity such evidences may 

 be thorouohly sifted and properly recorded in the same careful manner as 

 was done in tlie case of the Heathery Burn relics, under the efFective 

 direction of tlie editor of this journal. — Charles Carter Blake. 



A''egetablr Jvkmains at Bournemouth. — Sir, — Making inquiries to- 

 day of a labouring man employed in a gravel-pit, as to whether he had 

 ever met with animal remains in the gravel, or shells below it, he gave 

 the following as the only instance of the sort M'ithin his own knowledge : — 



" About eight years ago, w hilst working in a pit for white clay, which is 

 sent to StalTordslure, at a ])lace about one mile on the Poole side of Bourne- 

 mouih, in Dorsetshire, at forty-two feet below the surface we came upon an 

 oak-tree two feet in diameter. At first it seemed hard, but on exposure to 

 tlie air it could be broken away with the nail ; the leaves were there in the 

 clay, entire, but we could uot succeed in removing any of them : they all 

 came to pieces ; although we tried every means to do so, placing them 

 between the leaves of books, as some of "the ladies there w ished to have 

 them." 



Further inquiry on the spot, by any one who had the opportunity, 

 might be interestiiig, if the case has not already been recorded. 



I am, vour obedient Servant, 



SoutJiampfon, October 1st, 1862. " W. N. 



Fossil Monkey in the Miocene. — The following announcement is 

 made in Professor Owen's recently published memoir, " On the Osteology 

 of the Chimpanzees and Orangs," in the Zoological Society's Transactions, 

 page 18 : — 



" I have been favoured liy Dr. Kaup with the cast of a fossil femur 

 from the Eppelsheim miocene, near Darmstadt, and wilh the request that 



1 would compare it with the femora of the large aniliropoid apes in our 

 metropolitan museums. This femur is 11 inches 3 lines in length, is 



2 inches across the proximal, and 1 inch 7 lines across the distal end ; and 

 measures 2 inches 4. lines in circumference. It retains all the lower qua- 

 druinanal characters of tlie bone, with nearly the gibbon-like proportions 

 as to length and slenderness. The shaft is straight, without the least for- 

 ward bend ; the distal end becomes gradually and almost symmetrically 

 expanded, and in an inferior degree to that in the clumpanzee, gorilla, and 

 man ; the backward projection of the condyles is much less. The linea 

 asjiera is as little marked as in the gibbons ; the neck of the thigh-bone 

 is as short, and the head as small, relatively, as in the gibbons ; all the 

 modiiications, in fact, relating to the use of the lower limb in maintaining 

 the erect ])Osition, and which, in their respective degrees, are found in the 

 chimpanzee and gorilla, marking their progressive approaches to the pecu- 

 liar human attitude, are as coin])letely wanting in the fossil femur as in that 

 of the recent ungkas and gibbons ; whence we may infer that during the 

 miocene ])eriod there existed, in the locality haunted by the ape that has 

 left its remains at Eppelsheim, a richly wooded tract, in which a gibbon, 

 or long-armed ape, of twice tlie size of those of the Eastern Indian Archi- 

 pelago, cnjo3'ed a strictly arboreal life. Tlie shape of the shaft of Ihe 



