FLOOR.] 
FOSSILS. 
43 
At the end of the room opposite the entrance doorway, is the Fossil 
Human Skeleton brought from Guadaloupe in the West Indies by Sir 
Alexander Cochrane, and presented to the Museum by the Lords Com- 
missioners of the Admiralty. Human skeletons are found in the 
island just mentioned in a solid and very hard limestone rock, which 
occurs on the sea-shore at the base of the cliffs, and which is more or 
less covered by the sea at high water. The rock is composed of sand, 
the detritus of shells and corals of species still inhabiting the adjacent 
sea ; it also contains some species of land shells, identical with those 
now living on the Island : and, accompanying the skeletons, are found 
arrow-heads, fragments of pottery, and other articles of human work- 
manship. Beneath this specimen are placed masses of stalagmite, 
containing imbedded bones and skulls, the remains of aborigines, from 
the ossiferous cavern of JBruniquel in the South of France. On the 
lower shelves of the adjoining case (No. 11) are placed other human 
remains, together with worked implements of stone and bone, and 
numerous horns, teeth, and bones of the Reindeer, gigantic Ox, Ibex, 
Chamois, Wild Horse, Bird's bones, &c, the remains of the animals 
which served as food for the men of the Flint Period in that part of 
Europe. These are also from the Bruniquel Cavern. 
On the upper shelves of the Cases to the right and left of the 
Human Skeleton (Cases No. 10 and 11) are arranged numerous mam- 
malian remains from South America. 
The lower half of Case No. 1 1 is devoted to an extensive series of 
remains of the " Pigmy Elephant," discovered by Dr. Leith Adams, in 
the caverns and fissures of the Island of Malta. These remains be- 
longed to individuals of different ages, from the young to the adult, and 
furnish evidence of the former existence in Malta of a race of Ele- 
phants which, as compared with the living species, were of exceedingly 
diminutive size. 
GEORGE E. WATERHOUSE. 
