338 A Geological Problem. [July, 



bones of man, and of the extinct cave mammals in undis- 

 turbed deposits, which, without special search, we have from 

 time to time encountered and noted in the course of reading. 

 Compared with the number of infra-human remains sup- 

 posed to be contemporary which are piled up in numerous 

 museums, the human relics are no doubt but few ; yet 

 we cannot but think that, without insisting on each indi- 

 vidual case — though we know not why any should be 

 excepted — they are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently 

 well-attested to constitute a full and complete answer to the 

 question, " Why don't you find the bones of the men as well 

 as their implements?" 



III. It may be questioned, perhaps, whether the acknow- 

 ledged discovery of a portion of man's osseous system, 

 in the very places occupied by the implements, would, or, 

 indeed, ought to produce any change in the opinion of those 

 who propose the sceptical interrogation. To doubt the 

 human origin of the implements, of bone and stone, is 

 utterly beyond the power of any one. They do or they do 

 not prove that man was the contemporary of the animals 

 with whose bones and teeth and horns they are found. 

 If they do, his bones could do no more. If they do not, 

 they must have found their way into the deposits since the 

 relics of the extincl: animals were lodged in them ; and 

 if this is possible in the case of human tools, why not also 

 in the case of human bones ? 



But is the interrogation we have heard so often always 

 proposed with perfect ingenuousness ? Does it not, at least, 

 sometimes remind us that " Drowning men catch at 

 straws ? " Do the proposers ever act similarly in the 

 common affairs of life ? Does any one ever think that 

 De Foe's Crusoe was illogical, when he inferred that a man 

 had been on his island simply because he saw a human 

 foot-print on the sand ? Or suppose that he should have 

 waited until he had seen the man before he took the trouble 

 to make himself secure ? 



Though by no means essential as evidence of the exist- 

 ence of man when the deposits in question were laid down, 

 there can be no doubt that the exhumation of human bones 

 would be a source of much pleasure ; for if they did no 

 more, they might teach us whether our early ancestors 

 belonged to an extincl: or to an existing branch of the 

 human family, and what were their mental capabilities. 



When we remember, however, that the implements which 

 have been found imply that the intellectual position of their 

 makers was low actually, whatever it may have been 



