74 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-NINTH ANNUAL REPORT. 
laborers allowed to work the bank with shovels or other implements. If the 
remainder of the jaw had been preserved within the area covered by this sketch, 
or in fact within a somewhat greater ^rea, it would certainly have been recovered. 
The same is true of the missing and imperfect bones of the skeleton. These 
bones and parts of bones were either not washed into this formation, and for 
that reason failed of preservation, or if preserved in this deposit were lying 
K>me place outside of the area covered by this sketch. 
It is evident that the bones of this skeleton had become thoroughly dried 
before they were moved and broken, this fact being indicated by the sharp 
fracture of the bones. Dr. Hrdlicka has referred to the breaks in the bones as 
being “fresh,” and suggests that the breaks may have occurred for the most 
part as the bones were uncovered and fell from the bank.* It is, however, cer¬ 
tain that the breaks in these bones that were in place in the bank, such as the 
left ulna, the left radius, the right femur, and the left femur, and the bones of 
the skull occurred at the time the bones were washed to the place where they 
were found. Some of the bones may have been carried much farther by the 
stream at this time, while others possibly never found their way into this stream 
bed, thus accounting for the imperfection of the skeleton. 
To assume that these bones represent a burial affords no adequate explana¬ 
tion of the separation of the radius and the ulna; of the displacement of the 
two parts of the right femur; nor of the broken and scattered condition of the 
skull as well-as the scattering of the skeleton. On the other hand, recognition 
of the fact that the bones were washed by the stream to their present resting 
place affords an explanation of every phenomenon that is presented including: 
The broken condition of the bones; the separation of the radius and ulna a 
distance of five feet; the separation of the two pieces of the right femur a 
distance of eight feet; the position of the radius beneath fourteen inches of 
coarse sand and broken marine shells, the scattering of the parts of the skull; 
the presence of driftwood in. the deposit and the uninterrupted bedding above the 
bones, as well as the imperfect representation of the skeleton as a whole. 
In all of its features this deposit maintains the characteristics of a stream 
fill, and we may plainly read the history of the accumulation of material at this 
immediate spot. The stream had cut into the marine shell marl (stratum No. i 
of the section), making a rather sharp trench in that formation. As the result 
of flood waters there was thrown into this trench an accumulation of coarse 
sand and broken marine shells which filled the bottom of the trench to a maxi¬ 
mum depth of fourteen inches. Of the human bones the radius as seen in the 
photograph was left lying practically at the bottom of the little trench, while a 
piece of the femur and the ulna as well as parts of the skull were thrown well 
upon the side. Quiet conditions followed, interrupted occasionally by mild flood 
waters. One of these floods threw in the lens of coarse sand, including broken 
marine shells, which is seen in the photograph about twenty inches above the 
ulna. Under these alternating conditions of quiet waters and flood waters there 
was accumulated the successive layers of muck and sand, with occasional inclu¬ 
sions of driftwood forming the stratified deposit which permanently sealed the 
bones and preserved them until the present time. 
*Journal of Geology, Vol. xxv., p. 45, 1917. 
