] so I)r Hibbcrt un the Caves occupied by the 



species of animals found in this juxtaposition were now no longer 

 to be met with, they had been assumed to be antediluvian, but 

 upon insufficient evidence. The destruction of the forest in 

 which they found shelter, the drying up of the lakes on the 

 borders of which they found their food, and partial convulsions 

 of nature, sufficiently accounted for their extinction. In this 

 view the investigation of the caves in which human bones had 

 been found, was as much the province of the antiquary as of the 

 geologist. Dr Hibbert assumed as an hypothesis, that the tribes 

 inhabiting Europe, previous to the historical times, were in a 

 state similar to that of the Fins described by Tacitus, as lead- 

 ing an almost brutish life, destitute even of the earliest rudi- 

 ments of the arts. Such beings might well be conceived to 

 contend with the beasts, above whom they were so little ele- 

 vated, for places of shelter they knew not how to construct ; or, 

 at all events, they might crawl like the beasts into holes, to con- 

 ceal their dying agonies. At this period the bones could scarce- 

 ly have been deposited in caves for the purpose of inhumation 

 — the idea of sepulture belonging to a more advanced state. 

 The rude fragments of earthenware found in the same caves, 

 strengthen the conjecture that the bones belonged to an ex- 

 tremely rude and early period. The Celtic and Gothic tribes 

 who supplanted the aborigines of Europe, seem to have reached 

 the agricultural state. The Germans ai'e described as inhabit- 

 ing houses built of gross and unhewn materials, constructed 

 Avithout the aid of mortar, and also caves, into which they re- 

 tired for shelter from the inclemency of the winter, or from the 

 attacks of a powerful enemy. Traces of these ancient subter- 

 raneous habitations are still to be met with in Germany, but 

 much more frequently in France and Italy, where the nature of 

 the rock is in general more favourable to the task of excava- 

 tion. They are most numerous in the south of France. Each 

 cave appears to have been entered by a low chink or fissure, 

 situated almost half way between the floor of the cave and its 

 •locf, and diffisring as little as possible from the level of the 

 avenue by which it was approached. The entrance seems in- 

 tended to have been closed, from the invariable presence of a 

 narrow opening, reaching the external air in an oblique direc- 

 tion for the purpose of ventilation. Sometimes these caves arc 



