544 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
in recent years is that made by Herr Emil Bichler, director of the 
Natural History Museum in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The Alpine 
region had not been considered seriously as a field for paleolithic re- 
search, since the latter period closed before the retreat of the glaciers 
to anything like their present extent. It is true, man might have 
penetrated into the Alps during an interglacial period, but the evi- 
dences of his presence would have been destroyed by the succeeding 
glaciation. Two stations in Switzerland of the Magdalenian epoch 
have been known for years, viz., Schweizersbild and Kessierloch, but 
these are north of the Rhine in Canton Schaffhausen. 
It remained for Herr Bichler to make the discovery, some four 
years ago, of a station of late Mousterian age; not in a valley, or even 
the foot-hills, but in the Santis Mountains, which lie between the 
lakes of Constance and Ziirich. 
The station in question is on the Ebenalp (above Appenzell) at a 
height of 1,477 to 1,500 meters. It consists of two caverns, with 
southeastern exposure, that enter the precipitous face of the rock, 
and one of which penetrates backward and upward, giving access to 
the top of the mountain as well as to the Weissbach valley lying to 
the northwest. The caverns are reached by foot-path from Weissbad, 
the most frequented one being by way of the gap that separates the 
Bommenalp from the Ebenalp. This gap was produced by faulting 
which left the Ebenalp standing about 300 meters above its neighbor. 
The last part of the way is very steep but protected by a railing. 
It would, in fact, be absolutely broken at one point were it not for a 
wooden bridge anchored to the vertical face of the rock. This is at 
a point just below the first or lower cavern. It is probable, therefore, 
that paleolithic man did not reach the caverns from this side, but 
rather from the back of the mountain and by way of the upper cavern. 
The communication between the two is by means of a narrow ledge. 
(See pl. 8, fig. a.) 
These caverns have been known since 1621, and there is a legend 
to the effect that at a much earlier date they were inhabited by wild 
men. The little pilgrimage chapel of Wildkirchli that gives its 
name to the place was founded by Dr. Paulus Ulmann (1613-1680), 
priest at Appenzell. The chapel is in the lower cavern, and in the 
upper cavern where the hermit house once stood there is now the 
Wildkirchli Inn. The last hermit died in 1851, since which time 
Wildkirchli has been rather a belvedere for mountain climbers than 
a place of religious pilgrimage. The views are certainly superb and 
well repay the toilsome ascent. A place so full of the spirit of the 
past and of natural charms could not well escape the romancer, as 
witness the last chapters of the historical novel, Ekkehard, by the 
celebrated German writer, Viktor von Scheffel. 
