companied M. de Perthes. These details are all given in the Abbevillois of the 9th inst.

Two practised experts, Mr. John Evans and Mr. Prestwich, preceded me on the 11th inst. to Abbeville, and their suspicions were instantly aroused. They pronounced the flint hatchets to be modern fabrications. I followed on the 14th, and got three of them out of the "black seam gravel," covered with matrix, and having every external appearance of reliability; but, on severely testing them on my return to London, they all proved to be spurious. M. Quatrefages, member of the Institute, and the eminent professor of Anthropology in the Jardin des Plantes, got two of them in my presence from the same spot on the 15th inst. What they have proved to be I know not as yet, but I anticipate the same results. The number which turned out was marvellous, but the terrassiers were handsomely paid for their findings, and the crop of flint-hatchets became in like degree luxuriant.

Now for the jaw itself. What complexion of intrinsic evidence did it yield? The craniological materials available at Abbeville for comparison were, of course, very limited; but the specimen presented a series of peculiarities which are rarely seen in conjunction in the jaws Here I must be a little techof European races, ancient or recent. nical. 1. The posterior margin of the ascending ramus was extremely reclinate, so as to form a very obtuse angle with the ascending ramus. 3. The sig2. The ascending ramus was unusually low and broad. moid notch, instead of yielding an outline somewhat like a semicircle, was broad, shallow, and crescentiform. 4. The condyle was unusually globular; and, 5, what was most remarkable of all, the posterior angle presented what I may venture to call a marsupial amount of inversion. The first three characters suggested to M. Quatrefagesif I may venture to cite him for a preliminary impression and not a judgment-the recollection of something corresponding in the jaws of Esquimaux, while the fifth character suggested to me the recollection of what I had seen in the jaw of an Australian savage. Neither of us had at hand the materials requisite for a satisfactory comparison, but the combination of characters above alluded to struck us both as sufM. Quatrefages ficiently remarkable to demand serious examination. departed for Paris, taking the jaw with him, while I returned to London, bringing drawings and a careful description with measurements of the principal specimen, and M. de Perthes confided to me the detached molar. I may add that the jaw specimen, although professing to have been yielded from below a heavy load of coarse flints, presented no appearance of having been crushed or rolled; and that, making allowance for the crust of matrix enveloping it, the bone was The condyle washed light, and not infiltrated with metallic matter. yielded a dirty white colour.

As to the result, I have as yet no authentic information of the final conclusions which have been arrived at in Paris. My friends, Mr. Busk, F.R.S., and Mr. Tomes, F.R.S., both practised anthropologists, The former, like gave me their assistance in my part of the inquiry. M. Quatrefages and myself, was struck with the odd conjunction of unusual characters presented by the jaw, and speedily produced a lower jaw of the Australian type, brought by Professor Huxley

from Darnley Island, which yielded the same kind of marsupial inversion, so to speak, with a nearly corresponding form in the reclinate posterior margin, ascending ramus, and sigmoid notch. But Mr. Tomes's abundant collection brought the matter speedily to a point. From the pick of a sackful of human lower jaws, yielded by an old London churchyard, he produced a certain number which severally furnished all the peculiarities of the Abbeville specimen, marsupial inversion inclusive, although not one of them showed them all in conjunction. We then proceeded to saw up the detached molar found at Moulin-Quignon. It proved to be quite recent; the section was white, glistening, full of gelatine, and fresh looking. There was an end to the case. First, the flint hatchets were pronounced by highly competent experts (Evans and Prestwich) to be spurious; secondly, the reputed fossil molar was proved to be recent; thirdly, the reputed fossil jaw showed no character different from those that may be met with in the contents of a London churchyard. The inference which I draw from these facts is that a very clever imposition has been practised by the terrassiers of the Abbeville gravel pits-so cunningly clever that it could not have been surpassed by a committee of anthropologists enacting a practical joke. The selection of the specimen was probably accidental; but it is not a little singular that a jaw combining so many peculiarities should have been hit upon by uninstructed workmen.

The break down in this spurious case in no wise affects the value of the real evidence, now well established, but it inculcates a grave lesson of caution. H. FALCONER, M.D., F.R.S.

(From The Times of the 25th April.)

Miscellanea Anthropologica.

Blätter für Gerichtliche Anthropologie, vol. vi, 1856 (Journal of Forensic Anthropology), vol. vi, 1856. On Subjective Light, in relation to Forensic Anthropology.

SEILER (Nenke's Zeitschrift, 1839) relates the case of a clergyman who was attacked by two robbers in a pitch-dark night. A severe blow on the right eye caused such an evolution of subjective light, that he was able to recognize one of his assailants.

The question is of some importance in medical jurisprudence, namely, whether the sparks or rays of light, the usual results of pressure on the optic nerve, may, in some particular cases, enable a person clearly to perceive external objects in complete darkness, a question on which physiologists are by no means agreed.

Krügelstein (Nenke, Zeits., 1845) cites a case in which a witness said, "I saw sparks fly from his eye" (the assaulted); here it was an objective light, as a third person saw the evolution of light.

It is related of Tiberius and Cardanus that they could read in the dark immediately on awakening. (Suetonius, Vit. Tib., cap. 68; Plinius, Hist. Nat., lib. xi, cap. 37; Cardanus, De Subtilitate, lib. xii.) Lanzius knew a young man who could see and read in the greatest darkness.

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Cumenius (Miscell. et Ephem. Nat. Cur., dec. 1, a. 8, obs. 38) quotes the following case. A young man, a musician, received a blow on the right eye from the breaking of a string, which caused him much pain. In the following night, when he woke, his room was brilliantly lighted up, so that he could perceive the minutest designs on the papered walls. But when he closed the right eye he was in complete darkness. On again opening the right eye, all was light. Feuerbach tells the same thing of Casper Nause.

Dr. Michaelis, of Leipzig (Schlichtegroll, Nekrolog der Deutschen), iii b., p. 337), could, during the last few years of his life, at intervals read in the dark. Kastner (in his Archiv fur die Gesamt. Natur., bd. i, p. 68) says that he could spontaneously produce in himself such an electric light, and that on one occasion, after a botanical excursion, he read before his pupils, in perfect darkness, several passages from Hoffmann's Florer. Siebentaar (Handb. de Ger. Med., ii, 531) says that he succeeded, by friction and pressure, to produce sufficient light to see for moments the banisters of his stairs in the darkness. From these and similar cases it follows: 1. The human eye possesses the power of evolving sufficient light to enable a person to perceive objects in darkness; 2. That, in medical jurisprudence, the assertion of an individual (such as that of the clergyman) to have seen the assailant is not to be rejected.

Superfætation. Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, 1854, reported by Attaway.

On the 16th of June, 1854, a white woman was delivered of two children. The first was of dark complexion, and presented all the characters of African origin. Not being suspicious of the mother, I was at first inclined to look upon it as an abnormal pigment, or as a case of cyanosis. An hour after a second child was born, with a white complexion, blue eyes, and smooth hair. The contrast was striking. On looking close at the first child I found that the African type was perfect, and so was the Caucasian type of the second child. Subsequently the woman confessed as follows. Five days before her last menstruation she had intercourse with a white man, who was the father of the white child. Three days after (eight days after) she yielded to a negro, who was the father of the second child. She assured me that this was the only coition which had taken between her and the negro. A mare, having been first covered by an ass, and a fortnight after by a stallion, produced in due time a horse filly, and ten minutes after a mule. (Constatt Jahresbericht, 1859, from a report by Chabaud in Repert. de Toulouse.

On the Influence of the Climate of North America on the Physical and Psychical Constitution. By E. DESOR. (Centralblatt fur Naturgeschichte und Anthropologie, 1853.)

WHEN a German or Swiss emigrant arrives in New York, the climate appears to him much the same as that of his native country. But if he takes up his residence in that county, he soon finds it necessary to change his mode of life and habits.

It is about two hundred and thirty years since the first colonists arrived in New England. They were all true Englishmen, endowed with all the characters of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Another chief characteristic of the American is the length of the neck; not that it is absolutely longer than amongst us, but appears longer on account of leanness. The Americans again soon recognize the European by the opposite characters. "He is a stranger, look at his neck, an American has no such neck."

The physical difference between the American and European is not only manifest in the muscular system, but also in the glandular system, which especially deserves the attention of the physiologist, as it concerns the future of the American race.

The most intelligent Americans clearly perceive that the increasing delicacy of form (specially in the women) ought, if possible, to be arrested. Despite of their instinctive aversion against the Irish (forming the largest contingent of immigrants), they are aware that the development of the glandual system of that race is well calculated to neutralize the influences of the climate for a considerable time. It has been observed that the finest women are descended from European parents.

The influence of the climate is not merely shown in the descendants, but in the parents. There are few Europeans who get fat in the United States; the Americans, on the contrary, who reside for a considerable time in Europe, become more healthy and portly. This occurs also to the European who, after a lengthened stay in America, returns to Europe. The author (Desor) quotes himself an example of the kind. What still more characterizes the North American is his stiff lank hair. There is a striking contrast in this respect between the Englishman and the American. We look in vain among American children, despite of all the care taken by their mothers, for curlyheaded children, so frequently seen in England.

This influence on the hair is probably owing to the dryness of the climate. Hair, as is well known, curls when moist; we are, therefore, not surprised that in England the hair is inclined to curl, whilst it remains lank in America. The hair of the European becomes in America drier, and requires pomatum, etc., to keep it glossy and soft. Hence also there is a very large number of hairdressers in America. (M. Ausland, 1853.) Mention is also made of the want of metal in the voice of Americans, which is also ascribed to the influence of climate. Every European who arrives at New York, Boston, or Baltimore, will also be struck with that feverish activity the American displays. Everyone is in a hurry; the people don't walk, they run. Something like it is, no doubt, seen in the large commercial towns of England; but the activity of the Englishmen seems more under the control of reason; that of the Yankee is instinctive, at any rate the result of habit, or of an innate restlessness. They even exhibit this accelerated activity during their meals, which, even if they have nothing important to do, are despatched in less than no time.

The author is also of opinion that the use of spirituous liquors is more destructive in the American than in our climate. Europeans who, like the English, are accustomed to strong drinks in their own country, must either renounce the use or limit the quantity of these liquors in America, or they will suffer from them. Hence the large number of temperance societies in America.

At this time the pure English breed is no longer seen among the inhabitants of the United States. A Yankee type has been developed. This type is not the product of intermixture, since it is seen in the most marked form in the Eastern States, where the race is least mixed. External influences must therefore have produced the type. One of the first physiological characters of this American type is an absence of corpulence. On travelling the streets of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc., you will, among one hundred persons, scarcely see a portly one, who, moreover, will frequently be found to be a foreigner.

Abolition of Slavery.-The following remarks are forwarded to us by a correspondent, who states that it is a verbatim report of a speech delivered at a meeting of a young men's debating society in October last, to advocate the abolition of slavery. We rely fully on the veracity of our correspondent, and give insertion to such a curious morceau, which, we fear, but too truthfully exhibits the ignorance which exists in this country respecting negro slavery.

"Mr. Chairman, the proof which I wish to prove this evening is, that it will be for the universal good that the Southern or Free States should conquer the Northern or Slaveholding States; for slavery, to all honest hearts and Christian men, must be an abomination; but above all other Slaveholding States, the Northern States of America have been held up to the execration of the world for their abominable conduct towards, and their atrocities committed on, the wretched Hindoos whom they have so villanously enslaved. But we hope now that retribution is at hand, and the brave Southern general M'Clellan, who is now at the doors of New York clamouring for admittance, and his coadjutor, President Jefferson Davis, will soon burst the bonds that have so long ground down the unfortunate Brahmins, and bound them in chains and fetters in New York dark dungeons and in the "dismal swamps" of Toronto, and restore these unfortunate members of society to that pre-eminence in the social scale of humanity that they have so long been deserving of. Their social life, and the high cultivation that those highly gifted members of the human race have attained to, is too well known to need any further argument upon it. Then, when at length New York and Montreal have yielded to M'Clellan, the commerce of the New World will again be open to the Old, then Europe once more will be able to export cotton to America, and America in turn will be able to export to Europe, wine, frankincence, and myrrh !"

At a recent sitting of the Académie des Sciences, a communication was received from M. de Vibraye on flint implements. He stated that the country round Amiens and Abbeville is not the only part of France where flint hatchets are found; that he had for the last five years been exploring various parts along the banks of the Loire, and had found upwards of a thousand specimens pertaining to the stone period, in about a dozen localities, and that during the last year the department of Loire et Cher had begun to be explored with similar results.