206 
TUE GEOLOGIST. 
Ham, and Heatliery Burn Cave, Stanhope, of which the antiquity, 
however undemonstrated by the association of extinct animals, has 
been advocated upon more or less amount of geological evidence. 
Many other instances, but of less authentic value, might be added to 
the above. 
I shall discuss seriatim, as briefly as possible, the recorded in- 
stances, before drawing those conclusions which seem to be capable of 
deduction from the facts before us. 
With respect to the jS^eanderthal cranium,* unquestionably the 
most interesting of the evidences before us, I have briefly discussed 
in the ' Geologist,' vol. iv. p. 395, the question of its grade of 
organization. I hoped that Eugiish geologists would have thrown 
light upon the question of its age, and that a discussion might have 
arisen which would have established it either as a skull of compara- 
tively modern antiquity, or as possibly coeval with the deposits of the 
Somme valley.f The apparent ape-like, but really maldeveloped 
idiotic character of its conformation is so hideous, and its alleged 
proximity to the anthropoid Simi<£ of such importance, that every 
Fig. 2. — Side view of the Neanderthal skull (scale \ linear). 
efl'ort should be made to determine its probable date in time. That 
such efforts have not been made, and that the evidence at present in 
possession of English pali3eontologists is wholly inadequate to enable 
us to draw any conclusion as to its being the representative of any 
< given type of mankind, living or extinct, is the object of the following 
observations. 
The fact has not yet been conclusively demonstrated to the satis- 
faction of English geologists that the Neanderthal skull is of high an- 
* This slfuU is figured in the ' Geologist,' vol. iv. (1861) plate xi. p. 396. 
t While this paper was going through the press, Professor Huxley, F.R.S., kindly 
permitted me to inspect the cast of the Neanderthal skuU in his possession. I see, how- 
ever, as yet no sufficient grounds to infer its representing a distinct race of men. 
