[footnote] Darwin, 'Volcanic Islands', 1844, p. 49 and 154.
The Sicilian coast, the island of Ascension, and King George's Sound in
Australia, are instances of this mode of formation. On the coasts of the
Antilles, these formations of the present ocean contain articles of pottery,
and other objects of human industry, and in Guadaloupe even human skeletons
of the Carib tribes.*
[footnote] *[In most instances the bones are dispersed; but a large slab of
rock, in which considerable portion of the skeleton of a female is embedded,
is preserved in the British Museum. The presence of these bones has been
explained by the circumstance of a battle, and the massacre of a tribe of
Gallibis by the Caribs, which took place near the spot in which they are
found, about 120 years ago; for, as the bodies of the slain were interred on
the sea-shore, their skeletons may have been subsequently covered by
sand-drift, which has since consolidated into limestone. Dr. Moultrie, of
the Medical College, Charleston, South Carolina, U.S., is, however, of
opinion that these bones did not belong to individuals of the Carib tribe,
but of the Peruvian race, or of a tribe possessing a similar craniological
development.] --Tr.
The negroes of the French colonies designate these formations by the name of
'Maconne-bon-Dieu'.
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