222 FOSSIL MEN. 



entered Europe before the extinction of the mammoth 

 and other animals not known in history, and believed 

 to have survived only to the close of the Post-pliocene 

 period. These facts are now somewhat numerous, and 

 give good ground for the inference that some of these 

 creatures lived up to the human period, though they 

 give no absolute date for the disappearance of the 

 latest of them. They have been obtained chiefly from 

 caverns, and these may be classed as caverns of drift- 

 age, of interment, and of residence. 



To the first class belong the remarkable caves on 

 the banks of the Meuse and its tributaries near Liege, 

 explored by Schmerling. These caves contain scat- 

 tered skulls and bones of men, and occasional imple- 

 ments of bone and stone, mixed with bones of the 

 mammoth and other extinct quadrupeds, and also of 

 many modern quadrupeds, the whole imbedded in a 

 confused manner in mud, and covered with stalagmite 

 produced subsequently by the drippings of the cave. 

 Such deposits cannot give absolute evidence of con- 

 temporaneity, because bones of very different ages 

 may be huddled together in such places, and in a few 

 centuries may all assume much the same coloration and 

 chemical composition. To this extent, therefore; the 

 geological evidence in the case of these and all similar 

 caves is defective. Still, the coating of stalagmite, * 

 and other circumstances, establish an antiquity at least 



* Eecent facts show that under favourable circumstances 

 stalagmite may be deposited in a much shorter time than 

 hitherto supposed. 



