OcTOBEn 20, 1883.] 



SCTENCE. 



565 



produced nmnerous voliinios, crowds of papers, count- 

 less articles in reviews and magazines, in various 

 connlrics; anil perhaps, in order to show how very 

 popular the sulijeot became almost imiuedialely, il is 

 only necessary to slate that Sir C. Lyell's great work 

 on the ' Anti(|uity of man' was published in Febru- 

 ary, 1863; the second edition appeared in the follow- 

 ing April; and the third followed in the siicceeding 

 November, — three editions of a bulky scientific work 

 in less than ten months! A fourth edition was pub- 

 lished iu May, ],S73. 



Few, it may be presumed, can now doubt that those 

 who before 185S believed that our fathers had uiuler- 

 eslimated hinnan antiipiity, and fought for their be- 

 lief, have at length obtained a victory. Nevertheless, 

 every anthropologist has doubtle-is, from time to time, 



" Heard the distant and riindom gun 

 That the foe was sullenly firing." 



The 'foe,' to speak met.iphorically, seems to consist 

 of very irregular forces, occa-sionally unfair but never 

 dangerous, sometimes very amusing, and frequently 

 but badly armeil, or without any real armor. The 

 Spartan law which fined a citizen heavily for going 

 into battle unanned w.as probably a very wise one. 



For example, and dropping a inet.aidior, a pamphlet 

 published in 1877 coniain.i the following passage: 

 "With regard to all these supposed flint implements 

 and spear- and arrow-heads foutui in various places, 

 it may be well to mention here the frank confession 

 of Dr. Carpenter. He has told us from the presiden- 

 tial chair of the Uoyal academy that ' no logical proof 

 can be adduced that the peculiar shapes of these flints 

 were given them by human hands'" (see 'Is the 

 book wrong? a question for sceptics,' by Hely II. 

 A. Smith, p. 2()). The words ascril)ed to Dr. Carpen- 

 ter are put within inverted commas, and are the 

 whole of the quotation from him. 1 was a good deal 

 mystified on first reading them; for while it seemed 

 likely that the president spoken of was the well- 

 known member of this association, Dr. W. B. Car- 

 penter, it was diflicult to account for his being in the 

 presidential chair of the Koyal .academy, and not easy 

 to und(!r.staiid what the Koyal academy had to do 

 with flint implements. A little search, however, 

 showed that the .address which Dr. W. B. Carpenter 

 delivered in 1S72 from the presidential chair of, not 

 the Hoyal academy, but the British assocLation. con- 

 tained the actual words (juoled, followed immediately 

 by others which the author of the paiDphlet found it 

 inconvenient to include in his quotation. Dr. Car- 

 penter, speaking of ' common sense,' refeiTed, by way 

 of illustration, to the ' flint im[)lemenls' of the Abbe- 

 ville and Amiens gravel-beds, and remarked, " Nologi- 

 cal proof can be adduced that the peculiar shapes of 

 these flints were given to them by human hands; but 

 does any tmprejiuliced person now doubt it?" {lie- 

 port lirit. asxoc, 1872, p. Ixxv. ) Dr. Carpenter, afler 

 some further remarks on the ' flint implements,' con- 

 cludeil his paragraph respecting them with the follow- 

 ing words: "Thus what was in the first instance a 

 matter of discussion, has now become one of those 

 ' self-cyidcut' propositions which claim the unhesi- 



t.ating assent of .all whose opinion on tlic subject is 

 entitled to the least weight." 



Il cannot be doulited. that, taken in its entirety 

 (that is to say, taken as every lover of truth and fair- 

 ness should and would take il), Dr. Carpenter's para- 

 graph would produce on the mind of the reader a 

 very different effect from that likely, and no doubt in- 

 tended, to be produced by the mutilated version of it 

 given in the pamphlet. 



A second edition of the pamphlet has been given 

 to the world. Dr. Carpenter is slill in the presiden- 

 tial chair of the Koyal academy, and the quotation 

 from his address is as conveniently short as before. 



It would be easy to bring together a large number 

 of similar modes of ' defending the cause of truth,' 

 to use the words of the pamphlet just noticed; but 

 space and time forbid. 



I cannot, however, forego the pleasure of introdu- 

 citig the following recent and probably novel expla- 

 nation of cavern phenomena. In 18S2 my attention 

 was directed to two articles by one and the same 

 writer, on ' Bone-cave phenomena.' The writer's 

 theme was professedly the Victoria Cave, near Settle, 

 Yorkshire, which he says was an old Koman lead- 

 mine; hut his remarks are intended to apply to bone- 

 caves in general. He takes a very early opportunity, 

 in the second article, of stating that " we sh.all have 

 to take care to distinguish between what is truly in- 

 dicated in the 'science' view from what ,are purely 

 im.aginary exaggerations of its natur.al and historical 

 phenomena;" and he no doubt believes that he has 

 taken this care. 



'■ We have now," he says, " to present our own 

 view of the Victoria Cave and the phenomena con- 

 nected with it, premising that a great many of the 

 old mines in Kurope were opened by riioenician 

 colonists and met.al-woikers a thousand years before 

 the Komans li.ad set foot in Britain, which accounts 

 for the various floors of stalagmite found in most 

 caves, and also for the variety of groups of bones 

 embedded in them. The animals represented by 

 them, when living, were not running wild about the 

 hills, devouring each other, as science men suppose, 

 but the u^seful auxiliaries aiul trained druilges of the 

 miners In their work. Some of them, as the bear, 

 had simply been hunted, and used for fond; and 

 others of a fierce character, as the hyen.a, to frighten 

 .and keep in awe the native Bril<ms. The larger 

 species of mammalia, as the elephant, the rhino- 

 ceros, and hippopotamus, and beasts foreign to the 

 country, the Komans, no less than the Phoenicians, 

 had every facility in bringing with them in their 

 ships of commerce from Carth.age, or other of the 

 African ports. These, wilh the native horse, ox, 

 and stag, which are alw.ays found in larger numbers 

 in the caves than the remains of foreign' animals, all 

 worked peacefully together in the various opei.ations 

 of the mines. . . . The hippopotamus, although 

 amphibious, is a grand beast for heavy work, such as 

 milling, quarrying, or road-making; and his keeper 

 wouhl take care that he was comfortably lodged in 

 a tank of water during the night. . . . The phe- 

 nomena of the Victoria Cave lead-mine differ in no 



