BELGIAN CAVES. 313 



especially to the mammoth, he expressed the opinion that the 

 remains had been brought from a distance, and had very likely 

 been washed out of some earlier bed. " Nous n'hesitons point," 

 he says, " a exprimer ici notre pensee, c'est que nous doutons 

 fort que 1' elephant, lors de 1'epoque du remplissage de nos 

 cavernes, habitat nos contrees. Au contraire, nous croyons 

 plutot que ces restes ont etc" amenes de loin, ou bien que ces 

 debris ont ete deplaces d'un terrain plus ancien et ont ete 

 entraines dans les cavernes." 



Even, therefore, though Dr. Schmerling might be quite 

 right in his conclusion that the human remains had been 

 " enfouis dans ces cavernes a la meme epoque, et par conse- 

 quent par les memes causes qui y ont entraine une masse 

 d'ossements de differentes especes eteintes," still it would not 

 necessarily follow that man had lived at the same period as 

 these extinct species. 



Careful explorations of the Belgian caves have recently 

 been carried on under the auspices of the Government by 

 M. E. Dupont.* These caverns belong principally to the 

 so-called Eeindeer period, and the flint implements are never 

 ground. Thus out of 30,000 worked flints found in the cavern 

 of Chaleux, and 1200 in those of Furfooz, not one presents 

 a trace of polish. Some of these flint flakes, etc., appear to 

 consist of Pressigny flint, and in the opinion of Dr. Dupont, 

 as well as of M. de Mortillet, must have come from that 

 distant locality. In this cavern the humerus of an elephant 

 was discovered, but in M. Dupont's opinion, founded on the 

 state of the bone, it belonged to an earlier period than the 

 other remains. Human bones have been found in several of 

 these caverns. The Trou du Frontal contained bones belong- 

 ing to no less that thirteen individuals. They had probably 

 been buried in the cave, the door of which seemed to have been 



* Notices Preliminaires sur les du Gouvernement Beige dans les 

 Fouilles executees sous les auspices Cavernes de la Belgique, 1867. 



