SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 51 



to superintend by torchlight week after week and year after year the 

 workmen who were breaking through the stalagmite crust as hard as 

 marble in order to remove piece by piece the underlying stone 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 labour to the publi- 

 cation of unwelcome intelligence opposed to the preconceptions of the 

 scientific as well as of the unscientific public : when all the circum- 

 stances are taken into account we need scarcely wonder, not only 

 that the passing traveller failed to stop and scrutinise the evidence, 

 but that a quarter of a century should have elapsed before even the 

 neighbouring professors of Liege University came forth to vindicate the 

 truthfulness of their indefatigable and clear-sighted countryman." 



In speculating on the probable antiquity of these human bones 

 there are two classes of evidence to which appeal is made : firstly, con- 

 siderations of the time required to allow of so many species of car- 

 niverous and herbivorous animals becoming first scarce, and then so 

 entirely extinct as they had evidently become before the era of the 

 Danish peat and Swiss lake dwellings ; secondly, the very long period 

 necessary for the conversion of the physical geography of the Liege 

 district from its ancient to its present configuration ; as, for instance, 

 so many underground channels, through which rivers and brooks once 

 Howed, being now dry and choked up, the present rivers flowing 200 

 or 300 feet below. 



Many interesting investigations of the same nature as the above 

 were carried out at the Brixham caves in Devonshire by Dr. Prest- 

 wick in 1858. He was afterwards commissioned to visit the gravel 

 pits of Amiens and Abberville to examine discoveries there made 

 with regard to their claims to antiquity. Here excavations were 

 being made for fortifications and road building, and magnificent 

 sections from 100 to 200 feet high were laid open. 



In the gravel at a depth of 17 feet Dr. Prestwiek found a Hint 



