Abstract
THE circumstances under which the human remains now exhibited to the meeting were discovered, are narrated in a communication by Mr. F. Cundall, Secretary to the Jamaica Institute, published in the Journal of the Institute for April 1895, and also in a letter by Mr J. E. Duerden, Curator of the Museum, in NATURE of June 20. From the former I extract the following description of the discovery:ββOn the loth April, a labourer, whilst cutting stakes on the Halberstadt Estate (a wild, rocky part of the Port Royal Mountains, about 2000 feet above the sea-level, and two miles from the shore) on the estate of Mr. B. S. Gossett, a quarter of a mile east of the Kalorama Mission Station, discovered on the hillside a human bone. This led the Rev. W. W. Rumsey to make a search on the following day, when he discovered a small aperture 25 inches wide, and less than 2 feet high, in the face of the limestone rock, and blocked by boulders; on removing these, and passing through which, he discovered a cavern with water-worn sides, partially covered with stalactite deposits, penetrating into the rock for a distance of about 20 feet, about 5 feet across at its widest part, and not more than 2 or 3 feet high. The floor was covered with a deposit about 12 inches thick, of a fine light yellowish dust, but the remains were superficial.β
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On Recently Discovered Remains of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of Jamaica1. Nature 52, 607β608 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/052607a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/052607a0