52 
face to the bottom of the cutting before I resigned the charge of the 
exploration to Mr. Tiddeman after nearly four years’ work. There were 
frequent slips afterwards. Under these circumstances the reader can decide 
whether it is more probable that the mutton-bones in question did slip down 
from a higher level, to be picked out at the bottom, or that there is evidence 
of ‘interglacial (J. Geikie), or ‘preglacial’ (Tiddeman) man possessed of 
domestic animals, and probably using edged tools of metal. The mutton- 
bones seem to me to prove so much on the latter hypothesis, that they may 
be thrown aside without further thought. 
“The reindeer (bones of feet) was found in 1872, along with fox, rhinoceros, 
elephant, hyaena, and bison, in the cave, at the lower horizon, which after- 
wards was proved to contain the hippopotamus. It was omitted in Mr. 
Tiddeman’s lists up to 1876, when I called his attention to the fact. Then 
he wrote that the fact that it was so found was ‘ noteworthy,’ and that ‘these 
remarks [his generalisations] were made solely on the evidence which passed 
through your present reporter’s hands since he undertook to conduct the 
exploration of the cavern’ (Brit. Ass. Hep. 1876, p. 118). Surely it is too 
late, in his letter to Nature (March 10, 1881), to recall this on the grounds 
that these remains were discovered in a shaft, that my exploration was not 
carried on so accurately as his own, and further, that because he did not find 
the reindeer in the lower strata I did not. It is not for me to compare 
my own experience in cave-hunting with his, or to point out the value of 
negative evidence. The exploration while under my charge was not carried 
on by shafts only. When the hysena-laycr was reached, it was followed in 
the deep cutting visited by the British Association in 1873. The presence of 
reindeer in the hyaena-layer renders Mr. Tiddeman’s views untenable which 
are based on its assumed absence. Most of these points have been so fully 
argued out before the above-mentioned societies that I am sorry to be obliged 
to repeat them in this letter. W. Boyd Dawkixs. 
“ Oicens College y March 11.” 
Sir Joseph Bayrer. — As to the supposed human bone from the Victoria 
Cavern, I think it w^as only provisionally said, but not positively asserted, 
to have been human. It was a portion of a fibula, which turned 
out to be part of the fibula of a bear. No doubt it bore great resem- 
blance to the human fibula. The anatomist who gave an opinion upon it, 
though not an absolute one, was Professor Busk.* No more trustworthy 
and scientific anatomist lives than Professor Busk, and I am not aware that 
he ever gave it as his certain and positive opinion that the bone was human. 
Professor Busk afterwards said that on further examination he believed the 
bone to be part of the fibula of a bear. 
Mr. T. K. Callard, P.G.S. — I have seen the bone, and can well conceive 
that any anatomist might have made a mistake about it. It is only 6 inches 
* I have a letter from Professor Busk, saying : — “ After long dubitation 
wasted upon what at the time I regarded as tolerably good evidence, I 
concluded that the doubtful bone might be human, though of abnormal con- 
formation.” The bone has since been referred to by several geological 
writers, and it is somewhat curious, now that it has been finally pronounced 
by Professors Busk and Boyd Dawkins to be pari of the fibula of a bear, to 
read the comments and theories that the first opinion gave rise to. — E d. 
