378 beport — 1878. 



32, Harley Street, August 8th, 1878. 



My dear Tiddeman, — I received from Toulouse two ursine Fibulae, of 

 abnormal size, which in the part corresponding to the "fragment of con- 

 tention " so closely resemble it, as to leave little room for doubt that the 

 latter is, or may be, in reality ursine and not human. 



I am disposed, therefore, to acknowledge that my diagnosis of the 

 Victoria Cave bone was in all probability erroneous, and that, so far as 

 such an imperfect witness can testify, the preglacial existence of man must 

 rest upon other evidence. 



I am nnable to leave town for the Dublin Meeting, but shall be glad if 

 you will make my change of opinion in this matter known. In returning 

 the Victoria specimen I will also send one of the Toulouse bones, which 

 are very remarkable, and as regai'ds size widely different from any I have 

 before seen ; and with relation to their size it is to be remembered that 

 in your Collection* is one of the largest ursine crania (of the ferox type) 

 with which I am acquainted. 



With kind regards, 



Yours very truly, 



George Bcsk. 



It will be remembered that this bone was found by Professor Busk and 

 Mr. James Flower to bear the strongest possible resemblance to a rather 

 abnormal recent human fibula in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, 

 and was also considered not unlike the fibula in the famous Mentone 

 Skeleton. It was, therefore, considered an undeniable proof of the exis- 

 tence of man with the extinct mammals in Yorkshire. Professor Dawkins 

 supported Professor Busk and Mr. James Flower in this determination,'!' 

 but we must also add that he was the first to express doubts about it, and 

 further inquiries and examination instituted by him and Professor Busk 

 lead your Committee to the conclusion that any arguments based upon its 

 supposed human character must unreservedly be given up. If it bear an 

 equally good resemblance to abnormal ursine and human fibulae, it is 

 clearly not a sufficient foundation upon which to build any views as to 

 the existence, or non-existence, of man at a remote period. 



In stating this we desire to call especial attention to the fact that this 

 bone is not the only one found in the Victoria Cave which can be supposed 

 to have a bearing on the antiquity of man, and his existence in Britain 

 before the last great cold period had passed away in the North of England. 

 Many bones found in the Cave cracked and split, as savages split them, 

 for the extraction of marrow, have been very properly passed by as at best 

 very doubtful evidence, such fractures possibly owing their existence to 

 falls of rock upon bones lying on the floor beneath. But we cannot so 

 easily explain away the evidently artificial marks upon the two small bones 

 found in the Hyena-bed, and already referred to at length in the postscript 

 to last year's Report (pp. 218-220). 



Nor even were this evidence to be got over, can we rightly lay aside 

 the arguments founded on Physical Geology which result from the facts 

 partly obtained in the Victoria Cave Exploration. They are these — 1. The 

 existence of certain areas in the North of England where there is abun- 

 dant evidence of land glaciation of a comparatively late age. In the river- 

 deposits of these areas the earlier pleistocene mammals are never found 



* At Giggleswick Museum. f ' Cave-Hunting ' (1874), p. 120. 



