“The skin which covers the greater part of the head is in the dried
state, a tenacious, fibrous substance, like curried leather, of a
brownish-black on the outside and white in the inside; when burnt, it
had the odour of common leather; the mouth, in the place where the lips
should have been soft and fleshy, was putrid and much lacerated; the
extremities of the maxillary bone were bare. Upon the left side, which
had probably been longest exposed to the air, the skin was here and
there decomposed and rubbed on the surface; nevertheless, the greater
part of the mouth was so well preserved on the right side that the
pores, or little holes from which doubtless the hairs had fallen, were
still visible all over that side, and even in front. In the right side
of the jaw there were still in certain places numerous hairs grouped in
tufts, for the most part rubbed down to the roots, and here and there of
two or three lines still retaining their full length. They stand erect,
are stiff, and of an ashy colour, but with one or two black, and a
little stiffer than the others, in each bunch.
“What was most astonishing, however, was the fact that the skin which
covered the orbits of the eyes, and formed the eyelids, was so well
preserved and so healthy that the openings of the eyelids could be seen,
though deformed and scarcely penetrable to the finger; the skin which
surrounded the orbits, though desiccated, formed circular furrows. The
cavities of the eyes were filled with matter, either argillaceous or
animal, such as still occupied a part of the cavity of the cranium.
Under the skin the fibres and tendons still remained, and above all the
remains of the temporal muscles; finally, in the throat hung some great
bundles of muscular fibres. The denuded bones were young and less solid
than in other fossil crania of the same species. The bone which gave
support to the nasal horn was not yet attached to the _vomer_; it was
unprovided with articulations like the processes of the young bones. The
extremities of the jaws preserved no vestige either of teeth or
sockets, but they were covered here and there with the remains of the
integument. The first molar was distant about four inches from the
extreme edge of the jaw.
“The foot which remains to me, and which, if I am not mistaken, belongs
to the left hind limb, has not only preserved its skin quite intact and
furnished with hairs, or their roots, as well as the tendons and
ligaments of the heel in all their strength, but also the skin itself
quite whole as far as the bend in the knee. The place of the muscles was
filled with black mud. The extremity of the foot is cloven into three
angles, the bony parts of which, with the periosteum, still remain here
and there; the horny hoofs had been detached. The hairs adhering in many
places to the skin were from one to three lines in length, tolerably
stiff and ash-coloured. What remains of it proves that the foot was
covered with bunches of hair, which hung down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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