Ls] 



'had not been the dwelling-places of wild beasts ; and the 

 fact that the bones were scattered about without any 

 order having been observed in their distribution pointed 

 to the conclusion that the caves had not been used as 

 burying-places. Probably, therefore, these remains had 

 been washed into the caves from time to time, and had 

 gradually become covered with deposit, and thus pro- 

 tected and preserved. There were no complete skeletons 

 found; but in the Engis cave were discovered the 

 remains of at least three human beings, the skull of 

 one being embedded by the side of a mammoth's tooth, 

 and in such a state of disintegration that it fell to pieces 

 on being moved ; while the skull of another, an adult, 

 was buried, five feet deep, by the side of a tooth of a 

 rhinoceros, several bones of a horse, and some reindeer 

 bones. Besides the bones, there were also discovered 

 some rude flint implements, a polished bone needle, and 

 other products of man's industry, all embedded in the 

 same layer as the bones. It follows from these facts 

 that man lived on the banks of the Meuse at the same 

 time as the rhinoceros, mammoth, hyaena, and cave-bear, 

 extinct animals of the Pleiocene and early Pleistocene 

 era. 



Not far from these caves are those of the Lesse 

 Valley, in which Dupont discovered, in 1864, three 

 different layers of human and other remains, the lowest 

 of which contained the bones of the mammoth, rhino- 

 ceros, and other extinct animals, together with flint 

 instruments of the rudest type, instruments of reindeer 

 horn, and a human lower jaw with a marked resemblance 

 to the lower jaw of the higher apes. Another discovery 

 at some little distance away from these caves was made 

 in 1857 in what is called the Neanderthal Cave, in the 

 valley of the Diissel, between Diisseldorf and Elberfeld, 

 which is important, not so much as an indication of the 

 length of time that man has lived on the earth, as of the 

 close resemblance existing between the skulls of human 

 beings in the early Pleistocene era and the skulls of apes. 

 The discovery consisted of a human skull and a number 

 of human bones, together with the bones of the rhino- 

 ceros, which latter were subsequently unearthed. The 

 skull was of such a character as to raise the question of 



