COREESPO>'DENCE. 
200 
at the same level as the human skeleton has not been identified with any- 
recent or extinct species ; likewise that the depth in the mud or loam (five 
feet thick in all) in which the skeleton was found has not been recorded. 
^ ^r/ori probability would lead biologists to infer that pithecoid man 
first existed on this planet ; but in the present stage of the controversy it 
is, in my opinion, most hazardous to frame a table on the mere probability 
of a fact. Yours very truly, 
C. Cartee Blake. 
Tlie Portland Fissicres loith Human Bemains. 
Sir, — Will you allow me to make some remarks on the letter of Mr. 
Jicks in the ' Geologist ' of this month, in which he seems to doubt the 
correctness of the facts which I mentioned in my letter in the ' Geologist ' 
of last mouth, that the remains of man and of extinct mammalia have been 
found mingled together in fissures of the rock of Portland Island, which 
fissures do not extend to the surface of the rock ? 
TJie whole question depends, of course, on the nature of evidence which 
I produced of the truth of these facts. My first evidence was the testi- 
mony of the writer of an article in ' Willis's Current Notes' for the month 
of August, 1852, who had himself visited Captain Manning, at Portland 
Castle. He states expressly — on the authority, of course, of Captain Man- 
ning — that on several of the ledges, in the fissures of the Portland rock, 
which do not extend to the surface-soil by 5 or 10 feet, a number of 
bones of all kinds of animals have been found, including those of the human 
species. The truth of this statement has been in the fullest manner con- 
firmed to me by Captain Manning himself, who showed me, at the Castle, 
his collection of bones, which were those of men, the elk, the reindeer, the 
elephant, etc. He said that the fissures in which they were found did not 
extend to the surface of the rock. He also said, what is stated in ' AVillis's 
Current Notes,' that Dr. Buckland, who visited him at the Castle, being 
first attracted to the island by the discovery of a fossil boar's head, having 
doubts as to the place where the bones were found, accompanied him to 
the fissure, Avhcre a lad was let down, who brought up more of the bones 
in his presence. 
The next evidence which I produced was an article in the ' Times ' of 
the 1st of last January, relating to the fortifications recently built in 
Portland Island. The article states that in these fissures, " commencing 
about 20 feet below the surface of the ground, human bones have been 
found with those of wild boars, and horns of reindeer, not fossilized, but 
with all their osseous structure as perfect as if they were not fifty years 
old." Tlie high preservation of these bones proves that they must have 
remained entirely excluded from the air from the time that they entered 
the limestone formation to the period of their discovery. 
Can the facts which I have mentioned be disproved, — that human and 
mammalian bones have been found in fissures of the Portland rock, which 
do not extend to the surface of the rock ? If these facts are true, which 
may be easily ascertained by any person's visiting the island, they prove, 
beyond a doubt, that the human and mammalian bones must have been 
embedded in the rock before its consolidation, and consequently, that the 
men and animals to whom they belonged must have inhabited some other 
dry land, probably now destroyed. 
Again, what can explain the association in the fissures of the bones of 
the reindeer, an arctic animal, with those of a tropical animal, the elephant, 
VOL. YI. * 2 E 
