50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 66 
covered. The tooth was found near Skeleton II, while the other 
parts, one a toe bone of an adult and the other a tooth of a small 
child, came from the northern bank nearly opposite, where they lay 
&quot; at the contact line between strata Nos. 3 and 2,&quot; at a distance of 10 
yards from each other. About these bones very little can be said, for 
we do not know whether they represent skeletons the other parts of 
which have been removed by the dredges, or whether these other parts 
are still in the formation. Individual small bones and teeth, besides, 
are easily displaced and carried about. The only thing they indi 
cate is that in the same vicinity there were probably burials that 
were not discovered. All three specimens are in perfect condition, a 
fact which precludes the possibility of exposure for any length of 
time on the surface. Their position can hardly be explained, as was 
attempted by Dr. Sellards with Skeleton II, on the assumption that 
they have all been washed out from layer 2. If not thus explained, 
however, and if all the human bones at Vero are accidental inclosures, 
as claimed by Dr. Sellards, then we are confronted with the most 
miraculous occurrence the superposition in a little wild spot of the 
far-away wide inhospitable flats of eastern Florida of several human 
skeletons in different geological horizons. 
The demonstration of the antiquity of the human remains at Vero is 
verily a task of peculiar difficulties and discouraging complications 
for those who are responsible for bringing these remains into the 
forum of scientific discussion. 
THE SKELETAL REMAINS 
In examining and trying to identify racially human skeletal re 
mains, we may well bear in mind that such remains of whatsoever 
provenance are bound to show more or less of individual peculiarities 
or aberrations from the average of the type to which they belong; 
and that the more minute our examinations the more numerous 
will such aberrations appear. Such individual fluctuations or pecu 
liarities, however, have but little weight. Each bone of the skeleton 
has its own partially correlated and partially independent range of 
variation, which extends normally over hundreds of specimens, hun 
dreds of individuals. Some of these variations are reversive, some 
progressive, while still others, and they are perhaps in the majority, 
are more or less incidental and without much meaning. Hence, if 
we consider any given skeleton, any given bone, we are bound to 
find in it, on detailed scrutiny, various exceptional features, to which 
the less experienced might readily assign undue significance. The 
duty of the anatomist is to distinguish and rely only on those sub 
stantial characters which have a real value for racial determination. 
This will be kept in view in the following description of the Yero 
skeletons. 
