255 



NOTES ON A VISIT TO THE BONE CAVERNS OF THE 

 LESSE, IN BELGIUM. 



By Sir W. GUISE, Bart., President of the Cotteswdd Club, and the 

 Kev, W, S. SYMONDS, President of tlie Malvern Club. 



For several years there have been long discussions respecting the 

 antiquity of the human race, and the researches of M. Boucher de Perthes, 

 Mr. Prestwich, Sir C. Lyell, and many other geologists, pakeontologists, and 

 antiquarians of repute, are already so well known to the public, that it is 

 almost unnecessary for me to recapitulate the large amount of evidence which 

 has at last established the great antiquity of man as an accepted fact. 



Ever since the announcement in 1859 and 1860 by our distinguished 

 countrymen the late Dr. Falconer, Mr. Prestwich, and Mr. John Evans, of the 

 detection of human implements associated with the bones of the great extinct 

 mammalia in ancient river drifts, and their api^reciation and acceptation of 

 the discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes, the President of the Cotteswold 

 Club (Sir W. Guise) and myself have studied, in various localities, the drifts 

 and gravels of those ancient rivers which lung ages ago ilowed in broad 

 streams along the existing vales of our Severn, Avon, Wye, Usk and other 

 rivers. We also visited many of the caves, which, in Somersetshire and 

 Wales, contain immense quantities of the bones of the extinct animals, and 

 here and there the implements of ancient men. 



We have for some time been of opinion that many of the cavern deposits 

 would turn out to belong to the same epoch, geologically speaking, as do the 

 old valley gravels, and are, therefore, separated from the history of our 

 existing livers and theii' alluvia, by the lapse of untold ages. We visited the 

 caves of Gower, which I had already seen, in company with Sir Charles 

 Lyell, and were convinced that Lieut. -Col. Wood, the ardent explorer of the 

 cave history of that beautiful peninsula, had himstlf detected flint imijlementa 

 under circumstances which proved the existence of man during the life time 

 of the rhinoceros and other extinct mammalia. Again, the caves of Tenby 

 furnished us with corroborative proofs in the collection of the Kev. Mr. Smith, 

 of Gumfreston, and the researches of the Kev. Mr, Winwood, We also 

 visited the celebrated Salisbury sections under the guidance of Dr. Blackmore 

 and Mr. Brown, and made ourselves acquainted with the physical geology of 

 the surrounding neighbourhood. On this expedition we were accompanied 

 by our friend Mr. Reginald Yorke, who had previously studied the drift 

 deposits of Amiens and Abbeville, We thoroughly examined the high level 

 drifts, and the low level drifts, and the remains of the extinct animals col- 

 lected by Dr. Blackmore ; we saw the places from which many perfect 



