302 



NATURE 



{Feb. 1 8, 1875 



how intensely interesting and instructive a collection 

 might be made. The mere mention of other subjects — 

 Electricity, Magnetism, Acoustics, &c. — suggests possi- 

 bilities of magnificent collections which might be 

 formed, if only the public spirit of fortunate possessors 

 could be properly roused ; and on this latter point there 

 need, we think, be no fear. 



One condition, we think, ought to be insisted on : the 

 collection which it is proposed to form should be almost 

 entirely confined to the region of scientific research and 

 instruction, and should iriclude as little as possible of the 

 practical applications of science, which, indeed, have 

 hitherto had almost wholly their own way in our exhi- 

 bitions and museums. It should be distinctly understood 

 and acted upon, that the collection which it is hoped will 

 be opened at South Kensington in a few months is meant 

 to illustrate the history and methods of abstract scientific 

 research, of the true nature of which the public know 

 really nothing, and of teaching. Our friends the engineers 

 and other practical men, we are sure, will see the fairness 

 of our demand, and they are so powerful, and have 

 hitherto been so largely represented, that they can well 

 afford to be generous in this matter. 



While one great value of the collection about to be 

 formed will no doubt be from a historical point of view, 

 it cannot but serve also an important educational purpose. 

 It will let the public see how multifarious are the ways of 

 science, will show them that it is no mere child's play, 

 and tend to impress them more and inore with the great 

 importance of scientific education as a means of culture 

 and mental training. When the claims of scientific 

 research upon Government are advocated, those who 

 are familiar with such a collection will know what 

 is spoken of, and for what purpose the public money is 

 wanted. 



We hope, and indeed believe, that the experiment 

 about to be tried at South Kensington is simply the 

 first step towards something more permanent and much 

 more extensive — in short, the fulfihnent of the second 

 part of the recommendation of the Commission quoted 

 above. We believe that if such a collection is once 

 formed, if it be properly organised and arranged and 

 made perfectly intelligible to the public, both as to its 

 theoretical principles and practical bearings, it will in 

 time lead to a scheme as comprehensive, as complete, and 

 as invaluable as the French Conservatoire des Arts et 

 Metiers, to which we have frequently referred as a model 

 which our Go\ernment would do well to copy. The unsa- 

 tisfactory state of our Museums, their want of system, 

 and incompleteness, we have often insisted upon. We 

 think we are now on the road towards mending this latter 

 defect ; other defects can only be remedied by the adop- 

 tion of the Commission's recommendation, to unite the 

 principal collections under one responsible Minister of 

 State. It would without doubt be greatly to the advan- 

 tage both of the science and the industry of the country 

 to have collected and arranged in one establishment, 

 supported by Government, all the apparatus and illus- 

 trations of all the processes connected with every depart- 

 ment of science, pure and applied, abstract and practical, 

 instead of the heterogeneous and imperfect collections at 

 present scattered in various buildings under different 

 systems of management. 



CAVE HUNTING 

 Cave Hunting. Researches on the Evidence of Caves 

 respecting the Early Inhabitants of Europe. By W. 

 Boyd Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S., &c. (London: Mac- 

 millan and Co., 1874.) 



NO wonder that timid wanderers, peering into the dark 

 mysterious depths of some abyss, should in their awe 

 have peopled them with gnomes and goblins, or fancied 

 themselves at the portals of another world. Well might 

 poetic fancy, stirred by the thousand flashes thrown back 

 from the spar-spangled walls of some vast cave, have called 

 up fairy forms to give life to the beautiful stillness of the 

 scene. Less weird and less poetic, but not less inte- 

 resting, are the associations gathered by history and 

 tradition around caves. We hear of rude tribes who 

 habitually lived in rocky fastnesses occupying the caves 

 for shelter and protection ; and even when these were not 

 used as permanent dwellings, we learn' that in troublous 

 times many a clan, family, or individual have had to 

 leave their comfortable homes and betake themselves to 

 the caves and holes of the rocks. We might well expect, 

 therefore, that in the earliest age, when uncultured man 

 fought for the richest hunting-ground, or struggled with 

 nature for bare subsistence, the caves and rock-shelters 

 should often have been his home. 



We read again of the Patriarch purchasing the Cave of 

 Machpelah as a burying-place for his family. Are we to 

 suppose that this was a custom then newly introduced, or 

 ask whether it was not probable that the associations of 

 thought likely to spring up in the social life of the simple 

 pastoral tribes of prima;val man would not soon teach 

 him to bury his dead out of his sight instead of casting 

 them out to be devoured by wild beasts, and that he 

 should then choose the tombs oftered by nature and bury 

 in caves ? On searching for evidence on this point, we 

 soon find that from almost the earliest time of which we 

 can learn anything with respect to the human race, men 

 lived and died in caves, and a later people of somewhat 

 different habits buried in them ; what the earlier race did 

 with their dead is not quite clear. 



Deposits in caves are generally more or less protected 

 from the destroying agents which attack outside super- 

 ficial deposits, and so we have in them a vast store of 

 odds and ends, dropped, thrown away, or buried, which 

 enable us to form a fair idea of the habits of the life of 

 man long before the period to which history or tradition 

 can reach back, and also of other creatures which lived 

 with him or haunted the neighbourhood in those ancient 

 times. 



Caves are of all ages, and are formed in many ways. 

 There are bone-bearing fissures of Rhostic age. The 

 phosphate beds of Caylus, full of bones of mammals, from 

 early Tertiary to recent, are only ancient swallow-holes and 

 caves. But the cave deposits we have to consider now 

 are all post-tertiary, and are due almost entirely in the 

 first instance to the decomposition of limestone rocks by 

 the action of acidulated water. Mechanical action comes 

 in afterwards and enlarges and finishes the work. There 

 is, however, a difficulty as to how this action goes on 

 in some sheltered places which rain cannot reach and 

 where no water appears to run, such as many of the rock- 

 shelters or abris. A probable explanation in some 



