CHAP. IV. PRESENT STATE OF BELGIAN CAVES- 69 



best-preserved human skulls were found; and, after thus 

 gaining access to the first subterranean gallery, to creep on all- 

 fours through a contracted passage leading to larger chambers, 

 there to superintend by torchlight, week after w'cek and 

 year after year, the workmen who were breaking through 

 the stalagmitic crust as hard as marble, in order to remove 

 piece by piece the underlying bone-breccia nearly as hard; 

 to stand for hours with one's feet in the mud, and with 

 water dripping from the roof on one's head, in order to mark 

 the position and guard against the loss of each single bone 

 of a skeleton; and at length, after finding leisure, strength, 

 and courage for all these operations, to look forward, as the 

 fruits of one's labor, to the publication of unwelcome intelli- 

 gence, opposed to the prepossessions of the scientific as well 

 as of the unscientific public; — when these circumstances are 

 taken into account, we need scarcely wonder, not only that 

 a passing traveller failed to stop and scrutinize the evidence, 

 but that a quarter of a century should have elapsed before 

 even the neighboring professors of the University of Liege 

 came forth to vindicate the truthfulness of their indefatigable 

 and clear-sighted countryman. 



In 1860, when I revisited Liege, twenty-six years after 

 my interview with Sehmerling, I found that several of the 

 caverns described by him had in the intei'val been annihilated 

 Not a vestige, for example, of the caves of Engis, Chokier, 

 and Gotfontaine remained. The calcareous stone, in the 

 heart of which the cavities once existed, had been quai-ried 

 away, and removed bodily for building and lime-making. 

 Fortunately, a great part of the Engihoul cavern, situated 

 on the right bank of the Meuse, wa^ still in the same state 

 as when Sehmerling delved into it in 1831 and drew from it 

 the bones of three human skeletons. I determined, there- 

 fore, to examine it, and was so fortunate as to obtain the 

 assistance of a zealous naturalist of Liege, Professor Malaise, 



