524 
PROFESSOR OWEN’S DESCRIPTION OE THE CAVERN OE 
I propose to submit to the Society a description of the other organic remains in 
future communications. 
The portion of human skull remaining in the mass of breccia (Begister-No. 38300, 
British Museum) consists of the hinder three-fourths of the cranium, including the 
occipital, parietal, and a great proportion of the sphenoid and temporal bones. 
inches, lines, inches. lines* *. 
The extreme length of this portion of cranium is .... 6 6 6 1 
The extreme breadth, outside the bases of the zygomatic arches 5 4 4 7 
The extreme width of the cranial cavity 4 7 4 8 
The extreme height of ditto 5 0 4 10 
The foramen magnum measures 1 inch 9 lines in long diameter, 1 inch 3 lines in 
transverse diameter f. Its plane is nearly horizontal, as in other human skulls. The 
cranial cavity swells out 2 inches behind the posterior margin of the foramen. 
The occipital condyles show the usual form and position. From the inner border of 
the left condyle to the outer border of the left mastoid process measures 2 inches 1 line. 
The mastoid presents the average development, indicative of the muscular forces con- 
cerned in balancing and moving the head in the ordinary erect posture of the human 
race. The pterygoid process is too delicate to allow of the thick incrustation of stalag- 
mite to be removed, but it presents the usual length and other proportions. 
The glenoid cavity and ‘ eminentia articularis ’ with the basal parts of the zygomatic 
arches exhibit precise conformity with the human type of these cranial features. 
The thickness of the cranial walls, where fractured, across the fore part of the parietal 
and the temporal (squamosal) bones is not greater than that of the average European 
female skulls ; it does not exceed two lines and a half at any part, and is from one to 
two lines thick at the major part of the circumference. 
The interior of the cranium is lined by a thin layer of stalactite ; the parts of the 
exterior in the angles between the stones, where the earth of the breccia had not come 
into contact with the bone, are coated with stalactite to a thickness, at some parts, of 4 
lines. 
Where the unbrecciated earth or mould has come in contact with the skull it is 
adapted to the inequalities of the surface, with the interposition above mentioned of a 
thin layer of stalagmite ; and the earth has been hardened into breccia in that moulded 
terizing the race were not obtained. The major part of the human remains had been re-interred prior to 
M. Lartet’s visit. Of the human mandible disinterred at Moulin-Quignon, near Abbeville, under the circum- 
stances detailed by M. Boucher de Pekthes, in the e Compte Rendu de l’Academie des Sciences,’ Paris, 20 Avril, 
1863, p. 7, it would perhaps have been more to the interest and influence of science if one were not obliged to 
refer to ‘ Comptes Rendus de la Academie des Sciences,’ Avril 20, 27, Mai 4, Mai 18, Mai 25, ‘ Times Newspaper ’ 
of 25th April, and other ‘ brochures ’ which appeared in 1863 on the subject of this doubtful fossil. — R. O., 
July 1869.] 
* Negro skull, No. 96. See Owen, ‘Skulls of Western Equatorial Africans,’ figs. 7, 8, 9, pp. 12, 15, in Du 
Chaillu, Second Journey in Equatorial Africa, 8vo, 1867. 
f In an Australian skull the foramen magnum has a circular form of 1 inch 4 lines diameter. 
