30 Mr. Weaver on Fossil Human Bones. [Jan, 



strata, or in caverns, accompanying the bones of beasts of prey, 

 have not been confirmed on a closer investigation ; and, accord- 

 ing to later inquiries, it appears even probable that the bones 

 and skulls of men found in beds of calcareous tufa, have been 

 lodged there in an accidental manner. 



It is also to be remarked, that the remains of the large land 

 animals are always found in very low positions, in plains, on the 

 banks of rivers, or in deep valleys, dells, and the concavities of 

 hilly ranges, deposited in the alluvial strata, which is also the 

 case in the Kostritz district ; and it is obvious that they were 

 here destroyed, and partly swept into such positions, by the 

 concurrence of great floods. It is, moreover, highly probable 

 that in these operations land floods were the agent, and not the 

 sea. But then the attendant phenomena ought to be uniformly 

 the same. If the remains of man, now found commingled with 

 those of animals of the ancient world and of the existing crea- 

 tion, were destroyed with them at the same time, we ought to 

 find human bones distributed in all parts of the alluvial tracts.* 

 But this phenomenon has as yet appeared only in the loamy 

 deposit in the Kostritz gypsum, confined to a narrow space, and 

 under peculiar circumstances. 



The principal of these circumstances are the following : The 

 narrow valley which extends from Kaschwitz toward Kostritz 

 is bounded on the eastern side, near Politz, by a much more 

 considerable range of eminences than on the other side, which, 

 though gradually becoming more elevated toward Jena, is par- 

 tially interrupted by dells and circular concavities. The deep 

 narrow valleys and defiles prevailing in the neighbourhood of 

 Jena, in the valley of the MUM, and further toward Drackendorf 

 and Kostritz, clearly show the power with which the ancient 

 waters raged, when those channels were excavated in which at 

 present flow the Saale, the Elster, and the adjoining smaller 

 streams. It is manifest that during the course of this operation, 

 large tracts of the limestone superincumbent on the gypsum, as 

 well as of the new red sandstone, were torn and swept away, 

 and that the gypsum, thus laid bare, was repeatedly covered, 

 and its cavities filled, with the sediment of the waters, the exist- 

 ing loamy soil. 



That the bones of the same species of animals, as well as 

 human bones, should be found without order at different 

 depths, and even immediately under the vegetable soil, lying 

 upon the superior strata of the gypsum, is a circumstance tend- 

 ing rather to confirm than refute the idea of repeated depositions. 

 In the same manner, to find animals belonging to very different 

 epochs, assembled only in the gypsum, where situated in the 



* This argument proceeds on the assumption that the human race had overspread the 

 whole face of the earth, at the period of the formation of the alluvial tracts. The phy- 

 ical evidence, however, hitherto obtained from the investigation of those tracts, seems 

 to indicate the contrary, — T. W. 



