xlviii 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



long run matters went against ns ; and I am very glad that 

 they did, as truth alone was our object.' The doubts which 

 he still entertained were set forth in a memoir which he sub- 

 sequently wrote, but which never appeared in his life-time.^ 



In the spring of 1864 he published a notice on the remark- 

 able works of art by ' primeval man,' discovered by Messrs. 

 Lartet and Henry Christy in the ossiferous caves of the Dor- 

 dogne,^ which he had visited himself in conjunction with M. 

 Lartet ; during the subsequent summer he was occupied in 

 preparing a memoir ' On the Asserted Occurrence of Human 

 Bones in the Ancient Fluviatile Deposits of the Nile and 

 Ganges, with Comparative Remarks on the AUuvial Formation 

 of the two Valleys ' ; ^ and in September he accompanied his 

 friend Mr. Busk to Gibraltar, to examine caves in which 

 marvellously well-preserved remains of man and mammals of 

 great antiquity had been discovered. Before starting, he 

 drew up, in conjunction with Mr, Busk, a preliminary report 

 on the specimens brought from Gibraltar to this country, 

 which was pi-esented to the meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at Bath. He attached great importance to the results 

 of this expedition ; and on his return home he continued to 

 prosecute the examination of the fossil remains of Gibraltar, 

 the results of which he contemplated elaborating, in conjunc- 

 tion with those of his explorations in Sicily, into a separate 

 memoir on the Mediterranean Cave Fauna.* 



But his labours were at an end. From Gibraltar he 

 hastened home to support at the Council of the Eoyal Society 

 the claims of Charles Darwin for the Copley Medal. He 

 suffered much from exposure and fatigue, consequent on the 

 breaking down of the diligence on the Sierra Morena, on his 

 return journey through Spain from Gibraltar, so that the in- 

 clement winter told with additional force upon a constitution 

 naturally susceptible of cold and weakened by long residence 

 and serious diseases in India. On January 19th, on his 

 return from a meeting of the Council of the Eoyal Society, 

 he felt depi-essed and feverish. The attack speedily became 



' See vol. ii. p. 601. 



2 lb. p. 626. 



s lb. p. 632. 



* Since Dr. Falconer's death, a pre- 

 liminary report on the Gibraltar Caves, 

 drawn up by Dr. Falconer and Mr. Busk, 



as a letter to Sir W. Codrington, the 

 Governor of Gibraltar, has been pub- 

 lished in the Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, 

 (see vol. ii. p. r554.) A more detailed 

 report by Mr. Busk may shortly be e.\- 

 peeted. 



