From George Maw   25 April 1863

Dear Sir

About four years ago my cousin¹ brought from Gibraltar a lump of stalactitic concretion containing bones— Sir C Lyell’s book has interested me in examining it & I am strongly impressed with the idea that they are human.² a medical friend here³ to whom I have shown the lump also thinks that the bones are human

My brother⁴ who visited Gibraltar three years ago was shown by our friend there⁵ (who is a medical man & who gave the lump above referred to to my cousin) another lump of rock containing what appeared to him to be a portion of a human skull & which I fancy must have come from the same locality as the mass of bones but at present I know nothing whatever of the circumstances under which either of the specimens were found   indeed until Sir C. Lyell’s book made me curious on the subject I had almost forgotten having heard about them—

I wrote to our friend at Gibraltar a few days ago asking him for the loan of the piece of skull & to collect for me any information he c^d gather respecting the circumstances of its occurrence   In the meantime it may perhaps be worth while to submit the lump of concrete to Sir C Lyell & if you would kindly furnish me with his address I shall be interested in placing it before him. as I am entirely unknown to Sir C Lyell perhaps you would not mind mentioning my having written to you on the subject of the bones when you next have occasion to communicate with him—

I am just now interested in the examination of some very fine sections of drift which are being opened out in a Railway Cutting at the Entrance of Coalbrook Dale. (1$\frac{1}{2}$ miles from here)—⁶ The banks of the Severn the railway cutting & a gravel pit above it, afford an almost consecutive section or scores of sections of 160 to 170 feet in height & the top of this great drift bed is nearly 300 feet above the sea level. both the highest & lowest beds composing it are regular sea sand & well washed Pebbles & between them is a stratum of loam silt & Tough clay 50 or 60 feet thick interstratified with thin beds of gravel containing drift—coal Boulders & marine shells of which I have 7 or 8 species⁷   I do not know much about them myself but fancy they are recent species— The great bulk of this drift bed & the strata of tough clays strike me as being very unusual

Believe me to remain D^r Sir | very truly y^rs. | Geo Maw.

C Darwin Esq.