160 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



caves, it is to be observed, that few of these receptacles have 

 been found to have perceptible openings, excepting such 

 as have been accidentally made in later times. Besides, no 

 accident could place them under the stalagmite subsequent to 

 its formation. When recourse was had to the supposition, that 

 alter the ossiferous formation was completed, either by deposits 

 caused by floods, by the gradual accumulation produced 

 through the intervention of resident carnivora, or in any other 

 way, they were buried in the caves, without considering that 

 savages, who, as the presence of flint knives proves, could, with 

 such implements hardly break through the dense stalagmite 

 ;rust, and, from their nature, would scarcely be willing to 

 effect a passage through what must have been viewed by them 

 as solid rock, when, within the distance of a few yards, they 

 would bury a relative, worthy the trouble, with ease, in the 

 common soil/* If, in truth, the human bones found among the 

 others had been placed in those receptacles by the hand of 

 man, there would be tokens of human care; they would be 

 found connected, and the skulls, by far the hardest bone and 

 longest preserved, would not be wanting, as they generally 

 are ; nor, in that case, would the human remains be deprived 

 of animal juices, exactly in the same condition as those in the 

 bones of extinct species, — that is, varying according to cir- 

 cumstances, as they occur in both. With regard to the evi- 

 dence attempted to be drawn in support of the theory that the 

 human remains are more recent, because fragments of pottery 

 have been found with them, and, in one case, that the cavern 

 indicated the effect of smoke, it is surely unnecessary to 

 remark that savages are still human beings, who make use of 

 fire and of earthenware, particularly in cold and temperate 

 climates, provided they are not nomads; therefore, that the 

 presence of human bones indicates the existence of both fire 



* To a comparatively late age, when tools were not wanting, human 

 bones are found deposited very near or on the surface ; not buried, but 

 covered with heaps of stones or earth, forming cairns or barrows. 



