522 
PROFESSOR OWEN’S DESCRIPTION OF THE CAVERN OF 
Museum), was extracted from breccia, at e , underlying the mass which yielded the cal- 
varium. 
The portions of upper and lower jaws (ib. 38334, 38337) were extracted from the 
less calcified breccia near the middle of the cavern, at about the depth of 4 feet at d , 
fig. 4. 
The portions of upper and lower jaws (ib. 38336) with portions of cranium, were 
extracted from breccia at a depth of about 3 feet, at or near the position marked f, 
fig. 4 *. 
The statement by the Vicomte de Lastic of the discovery of these human remains, 
in the letters of 24th December, 1863 and 4th January, 1864, addressed by him on the 
subject of his general collections derived from the cavern of Bruniquel, to the Trustees 
of the British Museum, determined me to avail myself of the liberty of action confided 
to me when those letters were referred to me by the Trustees. I proceeded at once to 
the Chateau de Salette to inspect the collection there in the possession of M. de Lastic, 
and soon afterward, 23rd January, 1864, visited Bruniquel in order to examine the 
cavern itself. The human crania discovered in the recess b, fig. 4, had been left in situ 
by M. de Lastic expressly for my examination. 
The evidence of the former soft state of the earth or muddy part of the breccia, in its 
conformity with the superficial contour of the calvarium (Register-No. 38307, British 
Museum), was clearly shown. An unusual number of the large broad water-worn blocks 
or pieces of limestone had been piled, one above the other, for an extent of 3 feet above 
the crania, all firmly cemented together by intervening breccia, and suggested to me, 
what I stated at the time to M. de Lastic, that they had been placed over the crania 
for protection of the corpse or in a sepulchral relation thereto. Their numbers and 
arrangement called to mind a similar use of such stones accumulated at the places of 
interment of some of the ancient British, as, e. g ., that of the barrow on Balliden Moor, 
Derbyshire, figured in Davis and Thurnham’s ‘ Crania Britannica’ f . 
In excavating beneath these crania several parts of the human skeleton were brought 
to light, in relative positions suggesting such a degree of dislocation as might be produced 
by the superincumbent mass of material subsiding and pressing upon the skeleton as 
[* The finding of human remains in the positions d and f, fig. 4, was fortunate and instructive. The mass 
of matter accumulated in a cavern undergoes slow change, affecting bulk, by the draining off of the water which 
held in solution the salts and in suspension the soil precipitated as mud : such shrinking of the consolidated and 
calcified mass tends, especially in a basin-shaped cavity like the Bruniquel-cavem, to withdraw the mass from part 
of the periphery of its containing basin. Into fissures so formed small objects, such as flint-knives or other wea- 
pons of the human inhabitants, are liable to slip and descend to some depth. But the fissure is gradually closed 
by stalagmite from the drip. Thus, indications of them may he detected at depths associated with remains of 
extinct animals, and a conclusion as to contemporaneity may be erroneously formed. Although there was 
no evidence of such marginal or peripheral fissures, due to natural causes such as are above referred to, having 
existed of width enough to admit a human skull, it was satisfactory to know that human remains were not ex- 
clusively met with at or near the periphery of the brecciated mass forming the floor of the cavern. — July 1869.] 
t Part I. p. 45. 
