15S HUMAN FOSSILS. m 



at present, propose to enter. It is enough that 

 such a view of the relations of extinct to living 

 beings has been propounded, to lead us to inquire, 

 with anxiety, how far the recent discoveries of 

 human remains in a fossil state bear out, or oppose, 

 that view. 



I shall confine myself, in discussing this ques- 

 tion, to those fragmentary Human skulls from the 

 caves of Engis in the valley of the Meuse, in Bel- 

 gium, and of the Neanderthal, near Dusseldorf, 

 the geological relations of which have been ex- 

 amined with so much care by Sir Charles Lyell; 

 upon whose high authority I shall take it for 

 granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a con- 

 temporary of the Mammoth (Eleplias primigenius) 

 and of the woolly Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros tichor- 

 Jiinus), with the bones of which it was found asso- 

 ciated; and that the Neanderthal skull is of great, 

 though uncertain, antiquity. Whatever be the 

 geological age of the latter skull, I conceive it is 

 quite safe (on the ordinary principles of paleon- 

 tological reasoning) to assume that the former 

 takes us to, at least, the further side of the vague 

 biological limit, which separates the present geo- 

 logical epoch from that which immediately pre- 

 ceded it. And there can be no doubt that the 

 physical geography of Europe has changed won- 

 derfully, since the bones of Men and Mammoths, 

 Hyamas and Ehinoceroses were washed pell-mell 

 into the cave of Engis. 



