Cave Hunting

f Caves.-Men and Animals.-Ethnological, Archæological, and Geographical Bearings.-The three Classes of Bone-Caves: Historic

shipped, and where the oracles were delivered, as at Delphi, Corinth, and Mount Cithæron; in Persia they were connected with the obscure worship of Mithras. Their names, in many cases, are survivals of the superstitious ideas of antiquity. In France and Germany they are frequently t

r dishes and plates, and other kitchen utensils.1 "Then they retired a little, and when they came back, found everything they desired set ready for them at the mouth of the cave. When the wedding was over they returned what they had borrowed, and in token of gratitude, offered some meat to their benefactors." Allusions, such as this, to dwarfs, according to Professor Nilsson, point back to the remote time when a small primeval race, inhabiting Northern Germany, was driven by invaders to take refuge in caverns,-a view that derives support from the fact that in Scandinavia the tall Northmen were accustomed to consider the smaller Lapps and Finns as dwarfs, and to invest them with ma

s of Areia there is an abyss sacred to Pluto, and beneath it vast galleries, and hidden passages and depths, that have never been fathomed. How these are formed the Indians tell not, nor shall I attempt to relate. The Indians drive thither (every year) more4 than 3,000 different animals-sheep, goats, oxen, and horses-and each acting either from dread of the dreadful abyss, or to avert an evil omen in proportion to his means, seeks his own and his family's safety by causing the animals to tumble in; and these, neither bound with chains nor driven, of their own accord finish their journey as if led on by some charm; and after they have come to the mouth of the abyss they willingly leap down, and are never more seen by mortal eyes. The lowing, however, of the cattle, the bleating of the sheep and of the goats, and the whinnying of the horses are heard above ground,

now resembling Gothic pillars supporting a crystalline arcade, or jutting out5 in little spires and minarets, and very generally covering the floor with a marble-like pavement, and i

Division of

t and geologist they offer far more than this. They give an insight into the wonderful chemistry by which changes are being wrought, at the present time, in the solid rock. Nor are the conclusions to which we are led by the investigation of these chemical changes merely confined to the interior of caves. They enable us to understand how some of the most beautiful scenery in Europe has been formed, and to realize the mode by which all precipices and gorges have been carved out of the calcareous rock. In the ne

ogical D

of the scope and object of the second,

nch conquest of Algeria, and in 1845 several hundred Arabs were suffocated in those of Dahra by the smoke of a fire kindled at the entrance by Marshal (then Colonel) Pelissier. Dr. Livingstone alludes in his recent letters to the vast caves of Central Africa, which offer refuge to whole tribes with their cattle and household stuff. In France, according to M.7 Desnoyers, there are at the present time whole villages, including the church, to be found in the rock, which are merely caves modified, extended, and altered by the hand of man. The caves of the Dordogne were inhabited in the middle ages. Floras writes that the Aquitani, "callidum genus in speluncas se recipiebant, Cæsar jussit includi,"2 and the same caves afforded shelter to the inhabitants of the same region in the wars of King Pepin against the la

wever, be carefully remarked that the term does not relate to history in general, but to that in particular of each country which happens to b

ascertain roughly the sequence of events in the remote past, far away from the historical border. It may, indeed, seem a hopeless quest to recover what has been buried in oblivion so long, and it is successful merely through the careful comparison of the human skeletons in the caves and tombs of Britain, France, and Spain, with those of existing races, and of the implements and weapons with those which are now used among savage

nd this complicated question has an important bearing not merely on the ethnology, but also on the history, of some of the European peoples. It must be admitted, howe

storic times. In other words, they enable us to make out the groups of animals inhabiting the neighbouring districts, and which in many cases have either forsaken their original abodes or have become extinct. And since those which are extinct, or which have migrated, could not have lived where their remains are found under the present conditions of life, an inquiry into their history leads us into the general question of the ancient European climate and geography. It is o

division of cave-hunting, which may be defined as an inquiry into the remains of man an

Classes of

ls, and which are termed by the geologists Pleistocene, from the fact that a larger percentage of existing species were then living than in the preceding Pleio-, Meio-, and Eocene periods. The equivalent terms "Quaternary," used by many French geologists, and the "Post-pleiocene division of the Post-tertiary Formation," used by Sir Charles Lyell, are not adopted in this work, because they imply a break in the continuity of life, which does not exist. "Plei

the remains of man's handiwork. The Pleistocene age is the equivalent of the Palæolithic, or that of rude unpolished stone; the Prehistoric represents the ages of polished stone, bronze, and iro

ave-Explorat

, hyænas, fossil elephants, and other strange animals, which had been used for medicine. We owe the first philosophical discussion on the point to Dr. Gesner,4 who, although he maintained that the fossil unicorn consisted, in some cases, of elephant's teeth and tusks, and in others of its fossil bones, did not altogether give up the idea of12 its medicinal value. It is a singular fact, that fossil remains of a similar kind are, at the present time, used by the Chinese for the same purpose, and sold in their druggists' shops.5 The cave which was most famous at the end of the seventeenth century was that of Bauman's Hole, in the Hartz,

o which it led. The bones of the hyæna, lion, wolf, fox, glutton, and red13 deer were identified by Baron Cuvier; while some of the skulls which Dr. Goldfuss obtained have been recently proved, by Professor Busk, to belong to the grizzly bear. They were associated with the bones of the reindeer, horse and bison. Rosenmuller was of opinion that the cave had been inhabited by bears for a long series of generations; and he thus realized that these remains proved that the

ied by Sir Everard Home as implying the existence of the rhinoceros in that region. This discovery followed close upon the researches in Gailenreuth, and was due in some degree to the request which Sir Joseph Banks made

ed bones of the rhinoceros, mammoth, stag, bison, and horse belonged to animals which had been dragged in for food. He also established the fact that all these animals had lived in Yorkshire in ancient times, and that it was impossible for the carcases of the hyæna, rhinoceros, and mammoth to have been floated from those regions where they are now living into the position where he found their bones. He subsequently followed up the su

5 alive; but the scientific world was not then sufficiently educated to accept the antiquity of the human race on the evidence brought forward, and Dr. Buckland himself was so influenced by the opinions of his times, that he refused even to entertain the idea. Although the discovery was verified by the independent researches of Mr. Godwin Austin in 1840, and by the Torquay Natural History Society in 1846, the force of prejudice was so strong, that the matter was not t

mountain limestone of the Mendip hills, were being worked by the Rev. J. Williams and Mr. Beard, and furnished the magnificent collection of mammalian bones now in the museum at Taunton. In North Wales, also, Mr

lived in this country in ancient times, along with two other groups of species which are at present known only to live in hot an

red underneath stalagmite, and in association with the remains of the hyæna and woolly rhinoceros and mammoth, in undisturbed red loam, under conditions that prove man to have been living in Devonshire at the same time as those animals. Thi

he autumn of 1858, Dr. Falconer, who had been superintending the17 work in the Brixham cave, visited the collection made by M. de Perthes, while on his way to examine the caves of Sicily, and recognizing man's handiwork in the implements, he asked his friend Mr. Prestwich to explore the Valley of the Somme. This he accordingly did, and in company with Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., dug out with his own hands an implement from the undisturbed strata,12 and thus finally settled the disp

man with the extinct mammalia. And from that time down to the present date I have carried on researches in caves in various parts of Great Britain. In the district of Gower also, many ossiferous caverns were investigated, in 1858–9–60–1 by Colonel Wood and Dr. Falconer, and in one of them flint implemen

hapter V.); and in the following year the Settle Cave Committee began their work in Yorkshire under my advice. And this has led to the important conclusion, that a group of caves, extending

by M. Billaudel in 1826–27. In the south, Marcel de Serres, aided by MM. Dubrueil and Jeanjean, examined the important Cave of Lunel-viel in 1824, and published their results in a work that holds the same position in France as the "Reliquiæ Diluvianæ" in England. The caverns of Pondres, Souvignargues, and of Bize were explored, the two first by M. Christol in 1829, the last by M. Tournal in 1833, and those of19 Villefranche (Pyrénées-orient), Mialet (Gard), and Nabrigas (

ccupants can be ascertained with tolerable certainty, and from their comparison with the like articles now in use among savage tribes, it may be reasonably inferred that they were closely related in blood to the Eskimos. This most important question will be investigated in its proper place, in the chapter relating to the palæolithic caves of France. Professor Lartet, M. Louis Lartet, Sir Charles Lyell, and other eminent observers believ

to our knowledge, excepting the verification of the facts, afforded by the caves of Brixham and of Périgord

mammoth, rhinoceros, cave-bear, and hyæna formerly lived in that district. He also arrived at the conclusion that man was living at that remote time, from the discovery of flint-flakes and human bones along with the remains of those animals in the caves of Engis and Engihoul. In 1853,20 Professo

in the palæolithic age had also lived in Belgium. M. Dupont considers that the interments in the Trou de Frontal21 belong also to the palæolithic age, and that therefore man at that remote time was possessed of religious ideas. Before, however, this view can be accepted, it will be necessary to show the

in 1859; those of Malta by Captain Spratt in the same year; and those of Gibraltar by Captain Broome in the years 1862–8. They established the existence of the serval and the African elep

nt of scientific thought, it is equally true, that the results have reacted on scientific thought in general, and have especially benefited the sciences of geology, archæology, and history. A rich field of investigation lies before the cave-hunter, in Greece, Palestine, Lycia, Pers

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