THE INSTINCT OF IMMORTALITY. 299 



The first human skeleton found in this cave has 

 been beautifully illustrated in the photographs pub- 

 lished by Dr. Riviere. It was discovered under about 

 twenty feet of material, which is characterized as chiefly 

 ashes and cinders of fires, mixed with the bones of 

 recent and extinct mammalia, flint flakes, and shells. 

 The locality, as described by Dr. Riviere, is not likely, 

 unless great changes of level have occurred, to have 

 been inhabited by a settled tribe, but is rather a 

 maritime pass between France and Italy, where large 

 bodies of men may have resided for a time in the 

 course of migrations, or of hunting and military ex- 

 peditions. The skeleton is that of a man of great 

 stature, who must have been a hunter or warrior, of 

 physical type decidedly Turanian, and akin to that of 

 the aborigines of North America ; while his limb-bones 

 have the development of muscular processes charac- 

 teristic of men who walk much through rough forests, 

 and his arm-bones are those of a hunter rather than of 

 a man familiar with steady manual labour. This body 

 lay extended in an easy position, as if, says its dis- 

 coverer, he had died in his sleep. There is no evidence 

 of violent death, though he may have died from the 

 effects of a flesh or internal wound, not leaving traces 

 on the skeleton. He had evidently been buried by his 

 friends in a cave previously used as a habitation, and 

 afterwards occupied for a long time in the same way. 



As interpreted by American usages, the interment 

 may be explained thus. A war-party returning from 

 an unsuccessful expedition into France or Italy, halted 



