Sir H. H. Howorth — Antiquity of Man. 19 



of animals of the ancient world and with those of existing species, 

 and under precisely the same circumstances, being firmly enveloped 

 and compacted in the loamy deposit which occupies the fissures and 

 cavities of the bed of gypsum that occurs in that vicinity. " It is 

 undeniable," he says, " that in Winter's gypsum quarry human bones 

 were discovered at the depth of 26 feet from the surface, lying 8 feet 

 below the bones of the rhinoceros also there deposited. The human 

 bones, like those of the other animals, are more or less altered, 

 and deprived of their animal gluten. Human bones and skeletons 

 have also been found in other places within the tract of the alluvial 

 formations, in the vicinity of the repositories of large land animals 

 of the ancient world, but which have not hitherto received that 

 attention which they deserve. All these conclusions give, on the 

 first view, probability to the conclusion that the other animals were 

 destroyed at the same time as man, and, consequently, that the 

 latter was already in existence in this country at the period of the 

 destruction of the large animals ; an opinion which I have already 

 advanced." 



This is all very plain, very explicit and precise, and represents 

 the view now universally accepted, and Schlotheim ought to be 

 considered as its first scientific champion. He would perhaps have 

 been so regarded had he not been dominated by a priori views, which 

 were then natural, and which made him suggest as a possibility that 

 the human bones may have been brought thither by floods at a later 

 time than the animal bones, and this in the face of the fact that 

 the deposits in these caves of Gailenreuth were cased in with 

 stalagmite and did not contain secondary burials. He therefore 

 adopts a position of hesitation. He concludes, however, with the 

 words : " So much, however, appears to be proved, that thwy [i.e. the 

 human bones] occur here in a fossil state, having been brought 

 hither by great floods at very remote times." 



The memoir by Schlotheim came into the hands of Mr. Thomas 

 Weaver, who in 1823 published a translation of it with notes in the 

 Annals of Philosophy, vol. xxi, § 17. In these notes Weaver argues 

 very acutely against the bones of men and those of the ancient 

 animals at Gailenreuth having been deposited at different times, and 

 claims that they were all laid down together by the same diluvial 

 movement, and were therefore contemporary. He also shows that 

 Schlotheim's doubts as to the contemporaneity of the ancient and 

 more recent animals whose bones were found together, are answered 

 by the fact that Buckland found precisely the same varying 

 conditions in the bones from Kirkdale Cave. This shows that 

 both in Germany and in England very sane and sound views on 

 the antiquity of man, views which are now general, had been 

 championed on perfectly scientific grounds as early as 1823. The 

 position would then probably have been finally won had it not 

 been for the authority of Cuvier and Buckland, who were strongly 

 prejudiced against the view that man was contemporary with the 

 extinct beasts. The former was against the occurrence even of 

 fossil monkeys. In 1823 a very distinguished and competent 



