1823.] Mr. Weaver on Fossil Human Bones. 31 



lowest position, seems to indicate floods in more recent times • 

 more especially, as no animals of the existing creation have been 

 found in the cavities of the superincumbent limestone,* placed 

 on a higher level. These cavities, which are filled with the same 

 loamy soil, seem to have been the repositories of the bones of 

 beasts of prey, in the same manner as the caverns of Scharzfeld, 

 Liebenstein, &c. and these bones appear to have been swept 

 away by later floods, and deposited singly in the cavities of the 

 gypsum, situated upon a lower level, and which presents in this 

 spot the form of a basin, being one of the lowest positions in the 

 district. Hence it is highly probable that animals of the ancient 

 world, belonging to very different repositories and very different 

 eras, reaching in part even to the remotest antiquity, have been 

 here repeatedly brought together, and commingled in later 

 periods with the remains of recent animals, and the bones of 

 man ; yet in a manner very different from those met with in 

 strata of calcareous tufa.f This substance, considered as the 

 gradual and tranquil production of great lakes, covering on the 

 spot the skeletons of large land animals previously swept thither 

 and deposited, appears, for the most part, to belong to the more 

 ancient of the alluvial formations ; and this high antiquity is 

 also evinced by the state of the bones found in the tufa, which 

 are perfectly calcined, and also partly petrified. Upon the 

 breaking down of the dams which confined the lakes, and the 

 outflow of their waters, a part of the land animals buried within 

 their bosom appears to have been carried to a greater distance ; 

 and to this cause, and more stormy floods, we may in part attri- 

 bute certain depositions of loamy soil, in which are sometimes 

 found considerable beds of boulders and pebbles, composed of 

 limestone and other substances. In the district of Kbstritz, 

 even boulders of granite, of a considerable size, and which are 

 foreign to the country, are found in the loamy deposition, which 

 occupies the fissures and cavities of the gypsum. 



The great difference in the state of calcination exhibited by 

 the Kbstritz bones, will long remain enigmatical, as well as 

 several other of the peculiar circumstances that have been 

 adduced ; and I am far from thinking satisfactory the attempt 

 which I have made to explain the phenomena. At present, I 

 consider it as most probable, that the human bones thus found 

 belong to a much later epoch than the large land animals of the 



* This assertion of the author is surprising, after having stated above that the bones 

 of the ox tribe, found in the cavities both of the limestone and gypsum, are all referable 

 to recent species ; while the remains of the horse met with only in the limestone, coin- 

 cide, it is said, for the most part, with those of the existing species. — T. W. 



t The occurrence of bones of the common domestic fowl seems, in particular, to 

 bespeak a much later epoch ; unless we assume (notwithstanding the local peculiarities 

 attending them are contrary to the idea), that they were carried thither by beasts of 

 prey, and that the place of their deposit has been subsequently filled, perhaps even in 

 the latest period, with loam, the bones thus becoming enveloped and cemented in its 

 mas-i. 



