no human remains having as yet been found in conjunction with those of extinct animals, may be alleged in confirmation of the hypothesis that these animals lived and died before the creation of man.
The occasional discovery of human bones and works of art in any stratum, within a few feet of the surface, affords no certain evidence of such remains being coeval with the matrix in which they are deposited. The universal practice of interring the dead, and frequent custom of placing various instruments and utensils in the ground with them, offer a ready explanation of the presence of bones of men in situations accessible for the purposes of burial.
The most remarkable and only recorded case of human skeletons imbedded in a solid limestone rock, is that on the shore of Guadaloupe.[1] There is, however, no reason to consider these bones to be of high antiquity, as the rock in which they occur is of very recent formation, and is composed of agglutinated fragments of shells and corals which inhabit the adjacent water. Such kind of stone is frequently
- ↑ One of these skeletons is preserved in the British Museum, and has been described by Mr. König, in the Phil. Trans. for 1814, vol. civ. p. 101. According to General Ernouf, (Lin. Trans. 1818, vol. xii. p. 53), the rock in which the human bones occur at Guadaloupe, is composed of consolidated sand, and contains also shells, of species now inhabiting the adjacent sea and land, together with fragments of pottery, arrows, and hatchets of stone. The greater number of the bones are dispersed. One entire skeleton was extended in the usual position of burial; another, which was in a softer sandstone, seemed to have been buried in the sitting position customary among the Caribs. The bodies thus differently interred, may have belonged to two different tribes. General Ernouf also explains the occurrence of the scattered bones, by reference to a tradition of a battle and massacre on this spot, of a tribe of Gallibis by the Caribs, about the year 1710. These scattered bones of, the massacred Gallibis were probably covered, by the action of the sea, with sand, which soon after became converted to solid stone.
On the west coast of Ireland, near Killery Harbour, a sand bank, which is surrounded by the sea at high water, is at this time employed by the natives as a place of interment.
