52 I'KoCKKIMNUS OF THK AXATOM Jt'AL AND A NTH KOl'Ol.( MJK' 



hatchet. There were no signs of vertical rents in the gravel or 

 in the overhanging beds of sand and loam, so that it was impos- 

 sible to imagine that the tool had gradually worked its way down- 

 wards. In one place tools were so numerous find the Hakes chipped 

 off in their fabrication were lying around in such abundance as to 

 give rise to the belief that they had come upon an ancient manu- 

 factory of these implements. Geologists alone can appreciate the 

 age of these gravel beds, and even they can only guess at it. The 

 least figure that could be estimated would be 100,000 years. Gravel 

 beds are also found in the valley of the Thames, but the stone imple- 

 ments in them are ruder and different in shape from those belonging 

 to the Danish peat and Swiss lake dwellings, so that the Stone age 

 is divided into an earlier and later period. A lapse of time lies be- 

 tween them, but how long is not yet quite known. 



I may here refer to some interesting human skeletons believed 

 to belong to the older Stone age. One is the Neanderthal skeleton 

 found in 1857 in a cave near Dusseldorf on the Rhine. It was found 

 during quarrying operations. The workmen ignored the value of the 

 discovery, scattered and lost many of the bones. A German scientific 

 meeting at Bonn, where the skull was first exhibited, expressed doubts 

 as to whether it was truly human, the cranium being of such a low 

 tyi>e, with narrow receding forehead and strong projecting superciliary 

 ridges. The other bones were unusually thick, and the elevations and 

 depressions for muscle attachments were very marked and showing 

 great muscular development. This ancient skull approaches in char- 

 acter much nearer to the Chimpanzee than the modern European, 

 and this is generally regarded as a mark of very low intelligence. 

 The limb and other bones of this skeleton showed the height to be 

 that of a modern European, and thus we can form a picture of this 

 prehistoric man. Imagine a man, a Sandow in muscular development 

 and stature, covered probably with dark strong hair, crowned with 

 the head of an intelligent Chimpanzee, the face probably of a low 

 animal type in expression, more or less buried in hair, and you have 

 a mind's eye view of the Neanderthal fairly complete. The exact age 



