August 13, 1896] 



NA TURE 



339 



le-ally on it, and the correct position has to be guessed at. 

 This never could be very satisfactory, and, in high lati- 

 tudes "ith sun's dechnation of the same name, it is 

 absohitely useless, as, owing to the small angle made by 

 the path of the rising or setting sun with the horizon 

 (cos-'lsin latitude . sec declination'), the sun's azimuth 

 may change several degrees while the altitude changes 

 half a degree, so that it is practically impossible to 

 estimate with any approximation to accuracy the correct 

 amplitude ; and when the sun's declination is greater 

 than the co-latitude, the sun does not set at all. 



Amplitude tables appear in all collections ; but they 

 might very well be dispensed with now that the compass 

 error can be obtained with accuracy at any time of the 

 day and night with the aid of " Burdwood and Davis," 

 and the present extension to higher declinations. 



In conclusion, a word of praise may be given to Messrs. 

 Longmans for the clear and distinct manner in which the 

 tables are printed. F. C. Stebbini;. 



CA irERNS AND THEIR INHABITANTS. 

 Lcs Ca7'entes et leurs Hahilants. Par Julien Fraipont. 



Kcap. 8vo, pp. viii + 334. (Paris : Bailliere et Fils, 



1896.) 

 '"[""HE exploration of caverns during the twenty years 

 -i- which have passed since the publication of " Cave 

 Hunting.' has been carried on with an ever-increasing 

 interest in various parts of the world. In France M. 

 Martel has pro\ed, by his adventurous descents into the 

 abysses of these great laboratories of nature, that there 

 is a charm in exploring them, similar to that which attracts 

 the traveller to the highest summits of the mountains. 

 Ifany one doubts this, let him read " Les Abinies," where 

 he will find a tale of descents into the principal European 

 caverns that will remind him of the Alpine Journal K.wx'cve.A. 

 upside down. In Central America the " Hill Caves of 

 ^'ucatan" have allured Mr. Mercer to an expedition, the 

 results of which have been recently published with 

 admirable photographs. Here, as generally if not uni- 

 versally in the American caves, we look in vain for any 

 traces of man older than the ancestors of the Indian 

 tribes. In the book before us Prof Fraipont, who had 

 already made his mark as one of the discoverers of the 

 human remains in the cave of Spy, deals with the 

 general questions shortly and popularly, and with ample 

 illustrations. 



Our author treats, in the first place, the physical history 

 of caverns, and divides them into those that have been 

 formed by water and those which are of volcanic eruptive 

 origin. In the first of these groups the caverns formed 

 by the mechanical action of subterranean waters, com- 

 bined with the chemical action of the carbonic acid in 

 the water itself, are rightly separated from those formed 

 by the erosive attack of the sea. The second group 

 consists of those formed by the flow of liquid lava from a 

 lava stream, after the upper parts and sides have cooled 

 into the solid rocky condition. Caves of this sort are 

 found in most volcanic areas, and notably in the island of 

 Reunion and in Southern Italy. Prof Fraipont classes 

 with these the basaltic cave of StatTa, obviously the 

 result of the attack of the wa\cs on a line of weakness in 

 NO. 1398, VOL. 54] 



the prismatic basalt. It is a sea cave pure and simple, 

 and has no place in this group. 



Prof Fraipont, as might naturally be expected, passes 

 by the present fauna of the caverns with a brief notice : 

 the blind insects, the blind iish {Anihlyopsis) of Kentucky 

 and {Liicifuga) of Cuba, the blind Proteus of Carniola, 

 and the large-eyed rat {Neotoma) of Kentucky that sees 

 indistinctly. All these, so important from the light which 

 they throw on the effect of the environnjent on their 

 organisation, have no special interest in a work mainly 

 given to the story of man in the Pleistocene caverns. To 

 this we shall devote the rest of this review. 



The Pleistocene caverns are treated from the usual 

 standpoint of the French archieologist, and are divided into 

 three groups, according to the alleged differences in the 

 fauna and the occurrence of certain types of implements. 

 (1) Those of the period of ElepJias antiquus and Rhi- 

 noceros mcrckii, or the Chelles period ; (2) those of the 

 period of the mammoth and Rhinoceros lichorrhinits, or 

 that of Moustier ; and (3) those of the reindeer period. 

 This classification is founded on the assumption that these 

 mammalia and implements are characteristic of each 

 division. Some animals preponderate in some caverns, 

 and others in others, according to their habitat, and also 

 according to the selection made by the hunters, who 

 could kill, say, the reindeer more easily than the mammoth. 

 .A.s a matter of fact the study of the Pleistocene strata 

 in France, as well as in Germany, Belgium and Britain, 

 proves that all the above animals belong to one fauna in 

 Pleistocene Europe. All have been found side by side in 

 the gravel beds, for instance, on the banks of the Ouse at 

 Bedford. The fact that the reindeer folk hunted the 

 mammoth, as well as the rhinoceros, in France, is pro\ed 

 by the incised figures left behind as memorials of the 

 chase. The differences in the implements, with the ex- 

 ception of the first, are probably local and due to tribal 

 isolation, or to the scarcity or abundance of the materials 

 for implement-making. The only two clearly-marked 

 divisions, applicable to the whole of Europe, are (i) the 

 Chelles period or that of the river-drift, and (2) that of 

 the two latter of Mortillet (if Solutre be included, three) 

 or that known to English archaeology as that of the 

 cave-men. 



Human implements have been repeatedly met with in 

 various caverns in France and Britain, and in the lower 

 strata of Spy, in Belgium, which belong to the River-drift 

 time ; but with the exception of a solitary molar, found in 

 one of the caves in the valley of the Elwy, no human 

 remains have been discovered. It has been the good 

 fortune of Profs. Fraipont and Lohest to find, in the 

 cave of Spy, the first human skeletons, which belong 

 beyond doubt to the cave-men, and are sufficiently 

 perfect to allow of our arriving at a conclusion as to 

 their physique. They are small with short arms and 

 legs, and with a prognathous skull with low forehead, and 

 enormous orbits overhung by strong superciliary ridges, 

 with broad, strong cheek-bones, and with a long vault, 

 similar to that of the skull of Neanderthal. They had small 

 canines, and thigh-bones round in section, and without 

 trace of platycnemism. Without accepting our author's 

 view that they represent a " race humaine a caracteres 

 ethniques le plus inferieures que nous connaissons," we 

 may conclude that they represent a family group of a 



