64 HUMAN AND OTHER BONES IN LI£GE CAVERNS, chap. iv. 



were often much heavier. The human remains of most 

 frequent occurrence were teeth detached from the jaw, and 

 the carpal, metacarpal, tarsal, metatarsal, and phalangial 

 bones separated from the rest of the skeleton. The cor- 

 responding bones of the cave-bear, the most abundant of 

 the accompanying mammalia, were also found in the Liege 

 caverns more commonly than any others, and in the same 

 scattered condition. Occasionally, some of the long bones of 

 mammalia were observed to have been first broken across, 

 and then reunited or cemented again by stalagmite, as they 

 laj" on the floor of the cave. 



No gnawed bones nor an}' coprolites were found by 

 Schmerling. He therefore inferred that the caverns of the 

 province of Liege had not been the dens of wild beasts, 

 but that their organic and inorganic contents had been swept 

 into them by streams communicating with the surface of the 

 country. The bones, he suggested, may often have been 

 rolled in the beds of such streams before they reached their 

 underground destination. To the same agency the intro- 

 duction of many land-shells dispersed through the cave-mud 

 was ascribed, such as Helix nemoralis, H. lajncida, H. po- 

 matia, and others of living species. Mingled with such shells, 

 in some rare instances, the bones of fresh-water fish, and of a 

 snake {Coluber), as well as of several birds, were detected. 



The occurrence here and there of bones in a very perfect 

 state, or of several bones belonging to the same skeleton in 

 natural juxtaposition, and having all their most delicate 

 apophyses uninjured, Avhile many accompanj'ing bones in the 

 same breccia were rolled, broken, or decayed, was accounted 

 for by supposing that portions of carcasses were sometimes 

 floated in during floods while still clothed with their flesh. 

 No exam])lc was discovered of an entire skeleton, not even of 

 one of the smaller mammalia, the bones of Avhich are usually 

 the least injured. 



