THE HUMAN SPECIES. 97 



VALE OF KOSTRITZ. 



AN instance more remarkably clear, because more care- 

 fully observed, is that of the vale of Kostritz, near the 

 river Elster, in Upper Saxony, where, about fifty years 

 ago, gypsum quarries were opened, in a generally un- 

 dulating country, sufficiently elevated to preclude all 

 supposition, that inundations can have had the least 

 influence on the deposits, since the present geological 

 arrangement, and without external evidence of the 

 existence of any caverns. The soil is of the usual red 

 loam, which, both in France and in England, incloses 

 organic remains, and here, as in South Devon, covers 

 the limestone formation of the whole country. Masses 

 of stalactites occur beneath the surface; and, at the 

 depth of twenty feet, bones of large land animals were 

 discovered in the loam of the greater cavities. At Kos- 

 tritz, in particular, the gypsum is intersected by caves 

 and fissures in every direction, and connected with 

 each other, but filled throughout with the red alluvial 

 clay, containing, in clusters, bones of mammalia, and 

 among them of man. They were first described, in a 

 lucid manner, by Baron von Schlotheim, who summed 

 up his account by saying : " It is evident, that the 

 human bones could not have been buried here, nor have 

 fallen into fissures during battles in ancient times. 

 The human bones are few, completely detached and 

 isolated. Nor could they have been thus mutilated 



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