Montreal, September 20th, 1898.

REPORT OF Dr. HIBBERT ON THE WESTMOUNT SKELETONS

No.  I.—­A Young Woman

The bones of this skeleton, are fragile, broken and considerably decayed.

The skull is in fair condition, though the lower jaw is broken in half.

The skull is round and arched above the breadth index being 77.7, of brachycephalic or Mongoloid type. The superciliary ridges are not very prominent, but the frontal, parietal and occipital eminences are very distinct. The forehead is non receding and the breath measures 9 c.m.  The cheekbones are not unduly prominent, the official measurement being 119 m.m.  The gnathic index is 93, or orthognathous.  The teeth are well preserved and not much worn, the 3d. molars not having erupted in either jaw.  The face is short and broad, the height being 108 m.m. in and breadth 119 m.m., the orbit is inclined to be square with rounded angles and the type megaseme, the nasal index is mesorhine.

A very striking feature of this skull is the well marked central vertical frontal ridge and some tendency to angularity of the vertex.  In the whole this skull is of a more refined type than the others and suggestive of some fair intellectual development of the individual.  There are two wormian bones on the left side of the skull, one at the pterion and one below the asterion each being 9 m.m. long.

The bones generally are fragile and the long bones slender, with no marked impression for muscular attachment.  A curious fact is that the ends of all the long bones are absent, presumably from decay, and as these ends are united to the shafts between the age of puberty (14-15) and adult life it is suggestive that the individual may have been of about the age of 18 or 20 and this is somewhat confirmed by the noneruption of the third molars.

With this skeleton are two animal bones.  White and very dense in structure.  They are both femura, one probably that of an ungulate; the other of a carnivore.

No.  II.—­A Brachycephalic Man

This skeleton is that of a large and powerfully built man, the bones being very heavy and strong with marked impressions and prominences for muscular attachment.  The skeleton, with the exception of some of the small bones of the hands and feet is complete.

The skull is large and massive, and the lower jaw very strong and heavy.  The teeth are well preserved but much ground down at the crown.  The superciliary ridges are very prominent.  The fore head is narrow (102 c.m.) receding.

Judging from the size and strength of the bones and their impressions for muscular attachment, this man must have been very powerful and calculating from the length of the femur, at least six feet tall.  With this skeleton we found a small humerus of some mammal possibly a squirrel.