216 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
superoccipital bone. This character, the " os Incce,'' 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 {i. 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 Eoman 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,J of Philadelphia, " homoiokephalic represen- 
tation." Analogous congenital varieties or imperfections may be seen 
in almost every ethnic type. Dr. Williamson has described them in 
tlie 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 qiiasi-sym- 
metrical portions. Dr. Spencer Cobbold has seen a true inter- 
parietal bone 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 examination of the bones found with the human skull, at 
the Valley of the Trent, has afforded to me evidence of Bos longifrons, 
Bos primigenius, stag, wolf, goat, and horse. Some of the horn cores 
of Bos longifrons appeared to me to be more curved than usual, but 
the majority exhibited the normal form. 
Heathery Burn Cave, near Stanhope. — I refrain intentionally from 
offering 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 
* Rivero and Tschudi, ' Aiitiguedades Peruanas.' f Davis and Thurnara, p. 29. 
+ Meigs, ' Description of a Fragmentary Human Skull from Jerusalem.' 8vo. Philad. 
p. 279. 
§ See p. 201 of this number.— Ed. Geol. 
