A Palaeolithic Skull. At a meeting of tho Geological Society last night the pakeolithie human skull and mandible which have been discovered in Sussex were exhibited and formed the subject of a paper by MIr. Charles Dawson, F.G.S., and Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of the Geological Department of the British Mluseum. Reference was made to the discoveries in The Titne on November 23. The groat interest which has been displayed in them was reflected by the audience, which included vell-known geologists froin many parts of the country. Mr. Dawson, who is a solicitor at Levies. has taken great interest in the geology of Southern Suswex, and especially in the gigantic reptiles found in tho WVealden formation of the coast. CIRCO STANCE8 OF TnE DiscovErv. Mr. Dws%vox described the circumstancs of the discovery. Four years ago he was wvalking neAr Piltdown Common, in the parish of Fletchling, and obscrved somrn workmen digging gravel for farm roads. One of the men gave hirn a fragmcnt of a human skull which they had just discovered and had evidently broken up and throw%n away. On several visits to the sname spot afterwards he att&m' td to dixcover some of the pieces of the skull, whicIl he felt surc must still be there, and last winter was fortu- nate enough to retrieve two of the yiecan. The3c he brought to Dr. Woodward at. the Natural History Museum, and the specimen was agreed to be of so much importance that it was decided, as soon as circumstanecs admitted, to attempt to discover the remaining frAgments. Water filled the gravel pit until the end of May, but excavation was begun early in June, and by thc end of September had resulted ic the finding of suffIcient fragments of the skull to restore the wvholc and also in the recovery of half the lower jaw. At the same time the diggings revealed fragments of two primitive clephants, a hippopotamus, the common red deer and horse, and a beaver. Numerous flint implements of a very primitive type were also found. While the diggings were in progress he examined thoroughly the gcology of the wvhole neighbourhood. and came to the conclusion that the position of the gravel, and its nature, proved grcat antiquity. Although the river Ouse, which deposited the gravel, was at present exclusively within the Weald of Sussex, it must have had access, at the time when the deposit was formed, to flints wlhich formerly lay on the chalk-a continuation in all probability of the existing South Downs. Moreover, since the gravel was deposited the Ouse itself had cut doawn its channel to a depth of 8oft. CRAIACTERI:StICS OP THE SKULL. Da. WOODWArD continued the narrative. With the aid of Mr. Frank 0. Barlow, the preparator in the Department of Geology in the Natural. History Museum, a restored model of the skull was prepared, and it was now possible to study its features accu- rately and in detail. It, proved to be very different from the skull of any class of man hitherto met with. It had the steep forehead of a modern man with scarcely any brow ridges, and the only external appearance of antiquity was found in the occinut., which showed that in this early form the neck was shaped, not like that of a modern man, but more like that of an ape. The brain capacity was only about two-thirds of that of an ordinary modern man. So far as it was preserved, the mandible differed remarkably fronm that of a man and agreed exactlv with the mandible of a young chimpanzee. It still bore two of the molar teeth, which were human in shape; if these were removed it would be impossible to decide that the jaw was human at all. The skull differed so much from those of the cave- men already found in Germany, Belgium. and-France that it was difficult at first sight to interpret it. All tho cavemen hitherto found were characterized by verv low foreheads and verv prominent brow ridges resembling thosc of the full-grown modern ape. The new bpecimen was proved by geological consideratioons to be very much older thau the remains of these cavemeni. It was interesting to note in this connexion that the new skull was closely similar in shape -to that of a very young chimpanzee, whilc- as.he had mentioned-the skull of the later cavemen bad the brows of the full-grown chimpanzee. Therc- fore the changes which took place in the shape of the skull in successive races of early ien were exactly similar to the changes whichl took place in the skull of an ape- -s it grew from youth to maturity. He uaelind, therefore, to the theory that the caveman a3s a degenerate offshoot of early man. and probabl- became extinct, while surviving modern man might have arisen directly from the primitive source of which the Piltdouvn skull provided the first discovered evidence. It is 'understood that as soon as the paper read before the society last night has been published, which will be in the spring, MAr. Charles Dawson will present these specimens, with the other fossils, to the British Mtuseum. A PALTEOLITHIC SKUIL. FIRST EVIDENCE OF A NWV HUMAN TYPE.