BLAKE — 01^ THE CKANIA OF ANCIEITT EACES. 



207 



tiquitj. The time required for the deposition of the four or five feet 

 of mud in the cave might have been accomplished in a comparatively 

 short space of time. It is not stated at what .height in the deposit 

 the bones were found. 



Dr. Schauffhausen's statement, " that the bones adhere strongly 

 to the tongue, although, as proved by the use of hydrochloric acid, 

 the greate]- part of the cartilage is still retained in them, which ap- 

 pears, however, to have undergone that transformation into gelatine 

 which has been observed by Yon Bibra in fossil bones," is hardly 

 precise enough to convince practical geologists of the antiquity of 

 the skull. But of the Engis cranium no such evidence is afforded 

 us. It is hardly necessary to repeat the arguments made use of by 

 Buckland against Schmerling at the meeting of German naturalists 

 at Bonn, which proved the less degree of gelatine in the fossil hyaena 

 bones than in the human remains from the Belgian cave deposits. 

 The condition of the Vale of the Trent skull, which has been appa- 

 rently immersed in glue or some analogous liquid since its disinter- 

 ment, has deprived us of the only chemical evidence which could 

 have decided the question of its antiquity. Professor Huxley ad- 

 mitted to his audience at the Boyal Institution (Feb. 7, 1862) that, 

 with respect to the Neanderthal cranium, " its great antiquity was 

 not directly proved, although its date was undoubtedly very early."* 

 Professor Huxley went on to say, that in the Museum of the College 

 of Surgeons there are Australian skulls which closely correspond in 

 configuration and development with those of the caverns of Engis 

 and the Neanderthal, the differences between which latter were 

 " hardly greater than occurred between individuals of that race, 

 while in form the ancient and Australian skulls presented many 

 analogies." 



There are several suspicious circumstances connected with the 

 Neanderthal cranium, e.g. the pathological enlargement of the coro- 

 noid process of the left ulna^ apparently from an injury during life ; 

 the peculiar rounded shape and abrupt curvature of the ribs, analo- 

 gous in their appearance to those of a carnivorous animal ; Professor 

 Schauffhausen supposes this malformation to arise from an unusually 

 powerful development of the thoracic muscles. All these characters 

 are compatible with the Neanderthal skeleton having belonged to 

 some poor idiot or hermit, who died in the cave where his remains 

 have been found. They are incompatible with the evidences which 

 might be left in a "Westphalian bone-cave of the remains of a normal 

 healthy uninjured human being of the Homo sapiens of Linnaeus. 



JEngis (Belgium). — Pig, 3. — This skull, which was found by Dr. 

 Schmerling in the year 1833 in a cave, with the cave bear, cave hyaena, 

 elephant, etc., and has since proved the teterrima causa belli of palaeon- 

 tologists from the days of Buckland and Schmerling down to our own 

 days, exhibits a type of cranium which, if atcention had not been 

 speciallycalled to it, as that of an alleged contemporary of the cave bear 

 and mammoth, would have been the last to ati;ract the attention of a 

 * 'Medical Times,' Feb. 15, 1863. 



