312 ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 



sufficient to establish the great antiquity of the objects 

 upon which they occur. I have myself noticed upon 

 paper, which could scarcely be more than a year old, 

 dendritic deposits, which could not be distinguished from 

 those on fossil bones. Thus I possess a dog's skull from 

 the Roman colony of the neighbouring Heddersheim, 

 Castrum Hadrianum, which is in no way distinguishable 

 from the fossil bones from the Prankish caves ; it presents 

 the same colour, and adheres to the tongue just as they 

 do ; so that this character also, which, at a former meeting 

 of German naturalists at Bonn, gave rise to amusing 

 scenes between Buckland and Schmerling, is no longer of 

 any value. In disputed cases, therefore, the condition of 

 the bone can scarcely afford the means for determining 

 with certainty whether it be fossil, that is to say, whether 

 it belong to geological antiquity or to the historical period.' 



" As we cannot now look upon the primitive world as 

 representing a wholly different condition of things, from 

 which no transition exists to the organic life of the present 

 time, the designation of /ossz'Z, as applied to a bone, has 

 no longer the sense it conveyed in the time of Cuvier. 

 Sufficient grounds exist for the assumption that man 

 coexisted with the animals found in the diluvium ; and 

 many a barbarous race may, before all historical time, 

 have disappeared, together with the animals of the ancient 

 world, whilst the races whose organization is improved 

 have continued the genus. The bones which form the 

 subject of this paper present characters which, although 

 not decisive as regards a geological epoch, are, never- 

 theless, such as indicate a very high antiquity. It may 

 also be remarked that, common as is the occurrence of 

 diluvial animal bones in the muddy deposits of caverns, 

 such remains have not hitherto been met with in the 

 caves of the Neanderthal ; and that the bones, which were 

 covered by a deposit of mud not more than four or five 

 feet thick, and without any protective covering of stalag- 

 mite, have retained the greatest part of their organic 

 substance. 



" These circumstances might be adduced against the 

 probability of a geological antiquity. Nor should we be 

 justified in regarding the cranial conformation as perhaps 

 representing the most savage primitive type of the human 

 race, since crania exist among living savages, which, 

 though not exhibiting, such a remarkable conformation of 



