301 



a thick covering of stalagmite ; so far, then, the bones and works of man must 

 have been introduced into the cave before the flooring of stalagmite had been 

 formed. 



" These statements, however, attracted little attention ; and the very- 

 similar assertions made by Mr. Vivian, in a paper read before the Geological 

 Society, were considered so improbable, that the memoir containing them was 

 not published. 



" In May, 1858, Dr. Falconer called the attention of the Geological 

 Society to a newly-discovei-ed cave at Brixham, near Torquay, and a committee 

 was appointed to assist him in examining it. Grants of money were obtained 

 for the same object from the Royal Society and Miss Burclett Coutts. In 

 addition to Dr. Falconer, Mr. Pengelly, Mr. Prestwich, and Professor Ramsay 

 were intrusted with the investigations. In September, 1858, a preliminary 

 report was made to the Geological Society, but it is very much to be regretted 

 that the results have not yet been published in extenso. 



"The deposits in the cave were, in descending order : — 



1. Stalagmite of irregular thickness, 



2. Ochreous cave earth with limestone breccia, 



3. Ochreous cave earth with comminuted shale, 



4. Rounded gravel. 



" The organic remains belonged to the following species : — 



1. Rhinoceros tichorkinus. Teeth in considerable numbers and an 



astragalus. 



2. Bos sp. Teeth, jaws, and other bones. 



3. Equus sp. A few remains. 



4. Cervus tarandus. The Reindeer-, skull and bones. 



5. Cervus sjj. Horns. 



6. Ursus spelczus. The Cave Bear ; lower jaws, teeth, and the bones 



of a hind leg. 



7. Hycena sjjelcea. Lower jaws, teeth > fragments of skulls, and other 



bones. 



" Several flint flakes were also found indiscriminately mixed with these 

 bones, and according to all appearance, of the same antiquity. They occurred at 

 various depths, from ten inches to eleven feet, and some of them were in the 

 gravel, below the whole of the ochreous cave earth. One of them was found 

 close to the bones of the left hind leg of a cave bear. The remains comprised 

 not only the femur, tibia, and fibula, but even the knee-pan and astragalus 

 were in their respective places. It is evident, therefore, that the limb must 

 have been imbedded while in a fresh condition, or at least while the bones were 

 held together by the ligaments. As, then, they must have been deposited soon 

 after che death of the animal, it follows that, if man and the ' cave bear were 

 not contemporaneous, the latter was the more recent of the two." 



It is impossible, within the limits I have assigned to myself, even to enter 

 upon the mass of evidence of a similar kind which has been adduced by number- 

 less writers and enquirers in support of the great antiquity of man in Europe, 

 and the foregoing extracts must be taken as only examples of the cases which 

 have been investigated ; but it is certainly impossible for us to resist the convic- 

 tion that a length of time, enormous beyond all ordinary ideas on the subject, 

 must have elaj)sed, since England and the western parts of Europe were inhabited 

 by the elephant and the rhinoceros, animals of which no account is preserved even 

 in the oldest known traditions or monuments. But although the circumstances, 

 that many of the bones of each of these animals exhibit marks of having been cut 

 and broken by man in order to extract the marrow, and that many of the imple- 

 ments which have been found associated with his remains, were made from such 

 bones, may satisfy us that, even at that remote period, man had attained to a 



