r 178 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



twelve being counted. The first is 9'5 feet in 

 circumference at the base, and 10' 5 feet high: from 

 a distance it looks like one of the old Irish crosses. 



The second is 7 feet in circumference at the 

 base, and 9"5 feet high : this lies to the north-west 

 of the last, and is built into the wall that forms the 

 parish' boundary between Killannin and Kilcummin : 

 it is decayed in the centre and not near as perfect 

 as No. I . The third is a stump i feet high and 

 3 feet in diameter : this is said to have been the 

 finest tree in the group, but a short time before my 

 visit a barbarian cut off the upper portion. The 

 other nine consist of roots or stumps, none of the 

 latter beiug more than three feet higli, while most 

 of them are about one or two feet. These trees 

 seem to have existed for ages without any foliage, 

 and if they are of contemporary age with those in 

 the neighbouring bogs, of which tliere seems to be 

 every probability, they must be thousands of years 

 old, and some of the oldest, if not the oldest, trees 

 in the United Kingdom. 



Another old tree that may be recorded is the 

 " old yew of Lusmagh," in the King's County, on the 

 side of the Esker, that extends from Birr to the 

 Shannon, at Meelick. This tree has also for centuries 

 been without foliage, and may be of nearly a similar 

 age to those [on the crags south-west of Lough 

 Corrib. G. H. K. 



ON CAVE-DWELLERS. 



NOW that an interest is felt by almost every- 

 one in the inquiries into the state of the pre- 

 historic inhabitants of Europe, both human and 

 animal, I have thought that it might interest some 

 of the readers of this Magazine to read a few notes 

 of a personal experience of some very interesting 

 caves which I have visited, and which we find to 

 have been inhabited at a remote period by men, and 

 by animals at much earlier times still, both having 

 left many distinct traces of their sojourn. 



A few years since, when I was in the south of 

 Erance, I took the opportunity of visiting a series 

 of caves on the Italian frontier not far from Men- 

 tone, which had then been little explored. I found 

 a great many remains, of which I propose to give 

 a short description, and, last year, the caves were 

 partially properly explored by a Erenchman, by di- 

 rection of the French Government, and this has led 

 to a result which has made these caves very famous, 

 and to which I shall allude further on. 



The caves are situated in the face of a red lime- 

 stone cliff, at one of the most picturesque spots 

 on this part of the Mediterranean shore. They are 

 mostly high, not very deep, clefts in the rock, of a 

 triangular shape at the mouth, that is, wide below 

 at the ground and ending in a point above. 



On entering the caves, the first thing to be found 



was a dusty black alluvial deposit, some feet deep, 

 mixed lightly with the later remains, that is, the 

 more recent class of bones, flints, shells, &c. 



Deeper down, and more in front of the caves, is 

 a bed of breccia, many feet, perhaps yards, deep, 

 formed of the decayed rock fallen from above in 

 angular fragments and mixed with great quantities 

 of bones, and bound by the lime filtered in by water 

 into a regular concrete. 



In front of part of this cliff is a bit of the old 

 Roman road, called properly, I believe, the A^ia 

 Aurelia, with a picturesque little bridge over a 

 chasm, also of Roman date. At the top of the cliff, 

 above, is the splendid cornice-road made by the 

 great Napoleon. Near this was found, some time 

 ago, a large quantity of flints, broken and chipped, 

 which turned out to be, not relics of the Stone age, 

 but of the time when Napoleon's soldiers, passing 

 that way, new flinted their muskets. 



It is probable in very early times, when the 

 floor of the caves was much lower than at present, 

 and the caves deeper, on account of the face of the 

 cliff not being so worn away, that animals must 

 have inhabited them for a very long period, as the 

 quantity of bones is immense. 



Now, as to the animals represented here, I have 

 in my possession some teeth and pieces of jaw of a 

 kind of hyena, larger than any living species, which 

 were probably at one period the masters of the caves, 

 and took back large numbers of other animals as 

 food, and left great layers of teeth and broken bones 

 in the caves. 



I have also several bones of the great elk (Mega- 

 ceros), which was six feet in height from the ground 

 to the top of his back. 



Perhaps the most plentiful bones are those of the 

 smaller deer kind — the red deer among others, 

 which seems to have abounded. There are a great 

 many molar teeth of the horse (as far as I know, 

 the only way in which it is represented), the ox, and 

 pig; also of the goat, rabbit, marmot, and some 

 other rodents, which are hard to identify with 

 certainty. I have also a fine ' tusk,' or canine tooth, 

 of a bear. 



Besides these, I have one tooth of an animal 

 which it is certainly rather hard, without ocular 

 proof, to imagine living in this locality, — this is the • 

 rhinoceros. 



The reader will thus see that there was a con- 

 siderable variety of animals, all, however, excepting 

 the elk, hyena, and rhinoceros, now living in Europe, 

 either wild or domesticated. 



Inside the caves quite another era is represented. 

 Naturally, no flint is found for a couple of miles ; . 

 but here there are numbers of fragments, many of 

 them without doubt worked by man. I have some, 

 both rough and worked. I have also a lump of 

 charred wood, which I dug out myself. There are 

 here, of coui-se, the remainsjof the animals.used as- 



