no inducement to collect such objects, the latter supposition 
is improbable, as it could only be acquired by long experience 
in searching for such relics, which they have not had. 
In conclusion, however, I am not prepared to assert that the 
question of contemporaneity is fully established by the contents 
of these caves, though they certainly furnish facts which lead 
to such a conclusion. We find the bones of the tiger, hyaena, 
bear, wolf, wild boar, &c, occurring with various articles of 
human construction and in certain instances human bones, in 
some cases above the stalagmite, in others underneath it. Who 
is to decide which of the two is the most ancient ? In a 
letter from Mr. Jackson respecting the Victoria cave, he 
says : " The bones and teeth I have found have always been, 
" with the antiquities, strewed all over the place ; but there 
" were bones both above and below the other things. In 
" all cases where I have broken up the stalagmite with no 
" deposit of earth upon it, the antiquities were underneath." 
On the first discovery of these caves the floor was strewn 
over with cart loads of skulls and bones of animals, which 
would imply a long period of occupancy ; beneath these 
occurred man's bones and the works of his hands. In the 
Victoria cave, where the greatest number of works of 
early art were found, only two human teeth were identi- 
fied. Where were the other portions of the skeletons ? It 
would almost suggest the idea that some of the carnivorous 
quadrupeds had frequented the cave subsequent to man 
having made it his place of abode, for it seems very unlikely 
as I have already observed, that so many human beings as 
the personal ornaments must have belonged to would have 
resided in the cave while it presented so much the character 
of a charnel house ! If we allow the above to have been the 
case, and also connect with it the circumstance that all the 
remains of pottery were fragmentary, might not this arise 
from the natural propensity of some of the animals to search 
