THE HUMAN SPECIES. 153 



that scarcely oni fortieth of existing craters is now in activity, 

 or about one hundred in four thousand; and yet, that there are 

 still about two thousand eruptions in a century, or about twenty 

 per annum. Moreover, Iceland offers a comparatively recent 

 example to what extent a volcanic eruption may ruin a great 

 region of fertile country. Since this was written, another 

 devastation has taken place in the same island. 



BONES OF MAN AMONG ORGANIC REMAINS. 



For the further illustration of this important question, it is 

 requisite to examine whether the organic remains of extinct 

 animals, found in the soil, and chiefly in limestone caverns and 

 clefts of rock, are accompanied by human remains, bearing sim- 

 ilar characters of antiquity. Although, as yet, few systematic 

 researches on this head have been made, even in Europe, and 

 it is likely that in many bone deposits no human exuviae have 

 been noticed, still a sufficient number of instances attest to the 

 fact, and leave the question open only on the ground that they 

 were accidental cases, not belonging to the same period.* 

 Donati, Germer, Easoumouski, and Guetard, maintained that 

 human bones had been found intermixed with those of lost spe- 

 cies of mam mi ferae, in several places. They had been detected 

 in England,! in caves and fissures, enumerated by Professor 

 Buckland ; they were found at Meissen in Saxony, and at Dur- 

 fort in France, by M. Firmas. A fossilized skeleton, found in 

 the schist rock, when excavating the fortifications of Quebec, 



* Baron Cuvier, in the last conversation we had with him on the sub- 

 ject (in 1824), admitted that although the human fragments discovered at 

 Cette, near Monaco, and in the caves of the Apennines, might he more 

 recent, the opinions then in vogue would require considerable modifica- 

 tion. 



tAt Kirkby, in Yorkshire, in 1786, in the fissures of a limestone 

 quarry. 



