98 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



caverns, and has carefully noted the mode of occur- 

 rence of their contents, collecting at the same time a 

 vast number of bones and implements, now admirably 

 arranged in the museum of Brussels. In Belgium 

 the earlier anthropic period has been characterised 

 as that of the mammoth. The beginning of the ne- 

 anthropic is still a reindeer age, though that animal 

 was apparently becoming rare. It existed, as we know, 

 in Central Europe till the time of Caesar. 



The caves of Furfooz, and especially that of 

 Frontal, are among the most instructive. Dupont 

 has found that in many caves the older remains of 

 the mammoth age are contained in or covered by a 

 diluvial or inundation mud, 1 which seems to be the 

 closing deposit of this age. Now in the Frontal 

 cave this mud remained undisturbed and extended 

 out into a platform in front of the cave. The cave 

 itself had been used as a place of burial, and as many 

 as sixteen skeletons were found in it, with flint 

 implements, perforated shells, flat pieces of sandstone 

 with sketches of figures scratched on them, and an 

 earthen vase. All these lay above the original 

 palanthropic mud floor, and belonged to new tribes 

 which probably knew nothing of their predecessors, 

 whose bones were covered by the inundation mud 

 below. On the platform in front of the cave was a 

 hearth with the ashes of funeral feasts, and around 

 this were found a multitude of bones of animals, 

 of the modern species of the country. The people 



1 Sometimes with angular stones argile h blocaiix. 



