The extraordinary skull found in 1857 in the cave of Neanderthal,[165] by Dr. Fuhlrott, with some of the other bones of the skeleton, was not associated with any other animals from which its age could be inferred. “Under whatever aspect,” writes Professor Huxley, “we view this cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression, the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its sloping occiput, or its long and straight squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet discovered. But Prof. Schaaffhausen states that the cranium, in its present condition, holds 1033·24 cubic centimetres of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly have held less than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be estimated at about 75 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given by Morton for Polynesian and Hottentot skulls. So large a mass of brain as this would alone suggest that the pithecoid tendencies, indicated by this skull, did not extend deep into the organization, and this conclusion is borne out by the dimensions of the other bones of the skeleton, given by Prof. Schaaffhausen, which show that the absolute height and relative proportions of the limbs were quite those of a European of middle stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this, and the great development of the muscular ridges noted by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be expected in savages. The Patagonians, exposed without shelter or protection to a climate possibly not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the time during which the Neanderthal man lived, are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb-bones. In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the remains of a human being intermediate between men and apes; at most they demonstrate the existence of a man whose skull may be said to revert somewhat towards the pithecoid type--just as a carrier, or a poulter, or a tumbler may sometimes put on the plumage of its primitive stock, the _Columba livia_.” This skull, like the preceding, belongs to the dolicho-cephalic division, reaching the enormous length of twelve inches, with a parietal breadth of 5·75. A long-skull found near Ledbury Hill in Derbyshire, and belonging to the river-bed type of Prof. Huxley, comes so close to this one of Neanderthal, that were it flattened a little and elongated, and possessed of larger supraciliary ridges, it would be converted into the nearest likeness which has yet been discovered.[166] _The Caves of France.--Aurignac._