LECTURE IS. 241 



carious or otherwise diseased. Sclimerling lias described a 

 series of sucli diseased bones found in the Belgian caves, 

 Soemmering described a hyena skull tlie parietal portion of 

 wliicli had been bitten^ and afterwards partially healed. Such 

 animals may also have furnished their contingent of cave bones'. 



But if these three causes were thoroughly estabUshed^ we 

 ought, as in the cave at the Stoss, to find entire skeletons of 

 the carnivora. But so little is this the case, that caves which 

 have been completely explored furnished bones of several indi- 

 viduals, but rarely all the bones belonging to the same skeleton. 

 We shall recur to this fact when speaking of human bones. 



There remains, then, as regards most caves, only the assump- 

 tion that the bones, together with pebbles, shells, and other 

 rehcs, have been carried into the caves by water. If the bones 

 show traces of having been rolled, or bleached, or dried, they 

 may have been introduced in that condition. Where they are 

 better preserved, they were probably floated pieces of putrefy- 

 ing carcasses. As the mouths of caves and grottoes are fre- 

 quently several hundred feet above the valleys, we are justified 

 in assuming that in certain localities the watermark was much 

 higher than it is now, and that the brooks carried a larger 

 quantity of watei'. In many caves the deposition must have 

 been effected very gradually, as shewn by the stratification of 

 the mud intermixed with layers of sand and pebbles. In other 

 caves the deposition was more irregular, and probably effected 

 under the influence of cross streams. The small size of the 

 pebbles shows, however, that the current could not have been 

 very violent. Violent currents may have occurred, but only 

 in few localities. That caves containing no pebbles have been 

 but very gradually filled with mud by the introduction of the 

 melting snow waters is proved by the cave at the Stoss, which is 

 situated at a height and in a locality where the idea of a brook 

 cannot be entertained, and which nevertheless has within a 

 comparatively short time been filled with a layer of mud two 

 feet in thickness. 



On examining the remains of such species as have hitherto 

 been found in caves and the so-called diluvium, we first obtain 

 the fact, that a great number of species, and particularly such 



