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IX. On a fossil human Skeleton from Guadaloupe, By Charles 
Konig, Esq, F. R. S. In a Letter addressed to the Right Hon. 
Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. K, B. P.R, S. 
Read February 10, 1814. 
My Dear Sir, 
British Museum, Dec, 20, 1813. 
Th E human skeleton imbedded in limestone, lately brought 
from Guadaloupe by the Hon. Sir Alexander Cochrane, and 
presented by the Admiralty to the British Museum, having 
excited the curiosity of the public, I do myself the honour of 
submitting to you a short account of these fossil remains, 
which, (though fully aware of the weight of those arguments 
you lately urged in conversation, as unfavourable to the pro- 
bability of their high antiquity) I am still led to consider as 
not altogether uninteresting to the geologist. The neglect of 
the more recent formations of rocks w^as one principal cause 
that the nature and origin of the older had been so strangely 
misunderstood : it is to the more attentive observation that 
has of late years been paid to the phenomena which they pre- 
sent, that we are indebted for the knowledge of the important 
fact, that secondary fossils are the productions and depositions 
of various periods ; by which happy discovery the study of 
these remains, formerly a puerile and frivolous pursuit, has 
become a most important branch of natural science. The 
osseous relics of a later period are more particularly calculated 
to furnish data for the future construction of a philosophical 
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