Legends and Superstitions connected with Caves.—The Physical Division of the Subject.—The Biological.—The Inhabitants of Caves.—Men and Animals.—Ethnological, Archæological, and Geographical Bearings.—The three Classes of Bone-Caves: Historic, Prehistoric, Pleistocene.—History of Cave Exploration in Europe: Germany, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Southern Europe.

Caves have excited the awe and wonder of mankind in all ages, and have figured largely in many legends and superstitions. In the Roman Mythology, they were the abode of the Sibyls, and of the nymphs, and in Greece they were the places where Pan, Bacchus, Pluto, and the Moon were worshipped, 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 termed “Fairy, Dragons’, or Devils’ Caves,” and, according to M. Desnoyers, they are mentioned in the invocation of certain canonized2 anchorites, who dwelt in them after having dispossessed and destroyed the dragons and serpents, the pagan superstition appearing in a Christian dress.

In the Middle Ages they were looked upon as the dwellings of evil spirits, into the unfathomable abysses of which the intruder was lured to his own destruction. Long after the fairies and little men had forsaken the forests and glens of Northern Germany, they dwelt in their palaces deep in the hearts of the mountains,—in “the dwarf holes,” as they were called—whence they came, from time to time, into the upper air. Near Elbingrode, for example, in the Hartz, the legend was current in the middle of the last century, that when a wedding-dinner was being prepared the near relations of the bride and bridegroom went to the caves, and asked the dwarfs for copper and brass kettles, pewter 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 magic power, just as in Palestine the smaller invading3 peoples considered their tall enemies giants. The cave of Bauman’s hole, also in the Hartz district, was said, in the middle of the last century, to have been haunted by divers apparitions, and to contain a treasure guarded by black mastiffs; and in Burrington Combe, in Somersetshire, some twenty years ago, a cave was dug out by a working man, under the impression that it contained gold. The hills of Granada are still believed, by the Moorish children, to contain the great Boabdil and his sleeping host, who will awake when an adventurous mortal invades their repose, and will issue forth to restore the glory of the Moorish kings.

It is, indeed, no wonder that legends and poetical fancies such as these should cluster round caves, for the gloom of their recesses, and the shrill drip of the water from the roof, or the roar of the subterranean water-falls echoing through the passages, and the white bosses of stalagmite looming like statues through the darkness, offer ample materials for the use of a vivid imagination. The fact that often their length was unknown, naturally led to the inference that they were passages into another world. And this is equally true of the story of Boabdil, of that of the Purgatory of St. Patrick, in the north of Ireland, and of the course of the river Styx, which sinks into the rocks and flows through a series of caverns that are the dark entrance-halls of Hades. The same idea is evident in the remarkable story, related by Ælian (Lib. xvi. 16). “Among the Indians 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, and if anyone listen at the mouth, he will hear sounds of this kind lasting for a long time. Nor do they ever cease, because beasts are driven thither every day. But whether the sound is made by those recently driven in, or by some of those driven in some time before, I do not express an opinion.” The Roman Catholic Church took advantage of this feeling of superstitious awe, as late as the Middle Ages. At the time of the Reformation it was believed that a cave at Bishofferode would prove the death of some person in the course of the year, unless a public yearly atonement were made. Accordingly a priest came, on a certain day, to the chapel on the hill opposite, whence he passed in solemn procession to the cave, “and let down into it a crucifix, which he pulled up again, and took this occasion to remind them of hell, and to avoid the punishment due to their sins.”

The beauty of the interiors of some of the caves could not fail to give rise to more graceful fancies than these. The fantastic shapes of the dripstone, with which they are adorned, 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 in some cases lining the pools of water with a fretwork of crystals that shine like the facets of a diamond, were fitting ornaments for the houses of unearthly beings, such as fairies.
The Physical Division of the Subject.

It is by no means my intention in this work to give a history of legends such as these, but to take my readers with me into some of the more important and more beautiful caves in this country. The exploration of the chambers and passages of which they are composed, the fording of the subterranean streams by which they are frequently traversed, or the descent into deep chasms which open in their floors, have the peculiar charm of mountaineering, not without a certain pleasurable amount of risk. But to physicist 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 next chapter we shall see why it is that the combination of hill and valley, ravine and precipice, present the same general features in all limestone districts—why, for instance, the ravines of Palestine are the same as those of Greece, and both are6 identical with those in Yorkshire. The origin and the history of caves will be examined, as well as their relation to the general physical geography of the calcareous strata. All these subjects are comprehended in the first or the physical division of cave-hunting.
The Biological Division.

We must now proceed to the definition of the scope and object of the second, or Biological, division of the subject.

Caves have been used by man, and the domestic animals living under his protection, from the earliest times recorded by history down to the present day. Those penetrating the rugged precipices of Palestine, we read in the Old Testament, served both for habitation and for burial, and, from the notices which are scattered through the early Greek writers, we may conclude that those of Greece were used for dwelling-places. The story of the Cyclops proves that they were also used as folds for goats. The name of Troglodytes, given to many peoples of the most remote antiquity, implies that there was a time in the history of mankind when Pliny’s statement “specus erat pro domibus” was strictly true (“Hist. Nat.” I. v. c. 56). The caves of Africa have been places of retreat from the remotest antiquity down to the French 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 last Duke of Aquitaine. In this country a small cave in Cheddar Pass was occupied till within the last few years. The caves in the northern counties are stated by Gildas to have offered a refuge to the Brit-Welsh inhabitants of Britain during the raids of the Picts and Scots; and in the year 1745 those of Yorkshire were turned to the same purpose during the invasion of the Pretender. We might reasonably expect to find in caves turned to these uses objects left behind, which would tell us something of the manners and customs of their possessors, and light up the catalogue of battles and intrigues of which history generally consists. The results obtained from the Brit-Welsh group of caves, treated in the third chapter, show that this hitherto neglected branch of the inquiry is not without value to the historian.

Caves containing remains of this kind may be conveniently termed historic, because they may be brought into relation with history. It must, however, be carefully remarked that the term does not relate to history in general, but to that in particular of each country which happens to be under investigation. The misapprehension of this has caused great confusion, and many mistakes in archæological classification and reasoning.

8 Again, our experience of the habits of rude and uncivilized peoples would naturally lead us to look to caves, as the places in which we should be likely to meet with the remains of the men who lived in Europe before the dawn of history. Such remains we do find that, placed side by side with others from the tombs and dwellings, enable us to discover some, at least, of the races who lived in Europe in long-forgotten times, and to 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 tribes. By this means we shall see that there are good grounds for extending the range of the Iberian people over a considerable area in Europe, and for the belief that the Eskimos once lived as far south as Auvergne. In discussing both these problems it will be impossible to shut our eyes to the continuity that exists between geology, archæology, biology, and history—sciences which at first sight appear isolated from each other.

The bones of the domestic animals in the caves will necessarily lead to the further examination of the appearance and disappearance of breeds under the care of man. And 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, however, that this branch of the subject is, as yet, known merely in outline, and we can only hope to ascertain a few facts which may form a basis for future investigation.

9 From another point of view the contents of caves are peculiarly valuable. They have been used as places of shelter, not merely by man, but by wild animals, from the time they first became accessible to the present day. In the same way, therefore, as now they contain, in their superficial layers, the bones of sheep, oxen, and horses, foxes, rabbits, and badgers, so in their deeper strata lie buried the remains of the animals which were living in Europe long before the historic 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 obvious, for example, that the spotted hyæna, which formerly inhabited the caves of Sicily, could not have crossed over to that island after it was separated from Africa and Italy; and it would be impossible for the musk-sheep, the most arctic of the herbivora, to live as far south as Auvergne under the present climatal conditions. The presence, therefore, of these animals in these districts is proof in the one case of a geographical, and in the other of a climatal, change.

The discussion of all these questions is comprehended under the second, or biological, division of cave-hunting, which may be defined as an inquiry into the remains of man and animals found in the caves, and into the conditions under which they lived in Europe.

10
The three Classes of Bone-caves.

In the biological branch of the subject the caves will be treated first which are comprehended within the limits of history; then we shall pass on to the investigation of Prehistoric caves, or those which have been inhabited in the interval that separates history from the remote geological era, which is characterized by the existence of the extinct mammalia in Europe. And, lastly, those will be examined which have furnished the remains of the extinct animals, 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. “Pleistocene” was invented and subsequently discarded by Sir C. Lyell,3 and is at present used by many eminent writers, such as Forbes, Phillips, Gervais, and others. The ossiferous caves will therefore be divided into the Historic, Prehistoric, and Pleistocene groups. And it will be more convenient to work backwards in time from the basis offered by history, than to begin with the Pleistocene, or oldest division, and bring the narrative down to the present day.

This classification, founded in part on the principle11 of change in the animal world, and partly on the basis offered by history, coincides, only in part, with that of the archæologists based on 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 iron in part, or those stages in human progress when the use of these materials became general for the purposes of every-day life; while the Historic covers merely the later portion of that of iron.
History of Cave-Exploration in Europe.

Germany.—The rest of this chapter must be devoted to an outline of the history of cave-exploration during the last two centuries. The dread of the supernatural, which preserved the European caves from disturbance, was destroyed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the search after “ebur fossile,” or unicorn’s horn, which ranked high in the materia medica of those days as a specific for many diseases, and which was obtained, in great abundance, in the caverns of the Hartz, and in those of Hungary and Franconia. As the true nature of the drug gradually revealed itself, the German caves became famous for the remains of the lions, 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, in the district of Blankenbourg. It is noticed in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1662, and was subsequently described by Dr. Behrens,6 Leibnitz, De Luc, and Cuvier, along with others in the neighbourhood. Those of Hungary come next in point of discovery, the first notice of them being due to Patterson Hayne in 1672. They penetrate the southern slopes of the Carpathian ranges, and are known by the name of dragons’ caves, because the bones which they contain had been considered from time immemorial to belong to those animals by the country people. These remains were identified by Baron Cuvier as belonging to the cave-bear.7

It was not, however, until the close of the eighteenth century that the exploring of caves was carried on systematically, or their contents examined with any scientific precision. The caves of Franconia, in the neighbourhood of Muggendorf, were described by Esper in 1774, by Rosenmuller in 1804, and six years later by Dr. Goldfuss. The most important was that of Gailenreuth, both from the vast quantity of remains which it was proved to contain, and the investigations to 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 animals found in the cave had once lived in that district, and had not been swept from the tropics by the deluge. The interest in these discoveries was at its height in the year 1816, when Dr. Buckland visited the cave, and acquired that knowledge of cave-exploring which he was subsequently to use with such good effect in this country.8 From this time down to the present day, no new fact of importance has been added to our knowledge of caves by explorations in Germany.

Great Britain.—The first bone-cave systematically explored in this country was that discovered by Mr. Whidbey,9 in the Devonian limestone at Oreston, near Plymouth, in 1816; and the remains obtained from it were identified 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, that Mr. Whidbey, in quarrying the stone for the Plymouth breakwater, should examine the contents of any caverns that he might happen to meet with. It preceded Dr. Buckland’s exploration of Kirkdale by about four years.

14 In the summer of 1821 a cave was discovered, in a limestone quarry at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, which was found to contain bones and teeth of animals. On hearing of the discovery, Dr. Buckland posted at once from South Wales to the spot, and published the result of the explorations in the Philosophical Transactions for the next year. He brought forward evidence that the cave had been inhabited by hyænas, and that the broken and gnawed 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 subject by investigating bone-caves in Derbyshire, South Wales, and Somerset, as well as in Germany, and published his great work, “Reliquiæ Diluvianæ,” in 1822, which laid the foundations of the new science of cave-hunting in this country. The exploration of Kirkdale followed closely upon that of Gailenreuth, and was merely the application of those principles of research which had been discovered in Germany to caves in a new district.

From this time forward bone-caves were discovered in Great Britain in increasing numbers, and explored by many independent observers. The famous cavern of Kent’s Hole, near Torquay, furnished the Rev. J. McEnery, between 1825 and the year 1841, in which he died, with the first flint implements ever discovered in a cave along with the bones of extinct animals. He recognized the fact that they may be proof of the existence of man during the time that those animals were15 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 thought even worthy of investigation. Mr. McEnery’s manuscripts were lost until the year 1859, when an abstract of them was published by Mr. Vivian, and subsequently they were printed in full by Mr. Pengelly, the able superintendent of the exploration which has been carried on by a committee of the British Association since 1865, by whom several thousand flint implements have been obtained, under the conditions pointed out by the Rev. J. McEnery and Mr. Godwin Austen.10

While the important question of the antiquity of man was being passed by as of no account, other caves were being examined in this country. Those of Banwell, Burrington, Sandford Hill, Bleadon, and Hutton, in the 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. Lloyd discovered a similar suite of bones in the limestone caves in the neighbourhood of St. Asaph at Cefn, and in South Wales numerous remains were obtained by many explorers in those of Pembrokeshire and Gower.

16 The result of these discoveries was the proof that certain extinct animals, such as the woolly rhinoceros and the mammoth, had lived in this country in ancient times, along with two other groups of species which are at present known only to live in hot and cold climates—the spotted hyæna and hippopotamus of Africa, with the reindeer and the marmot of the colder regions of the earth.

The discovery in 1858, and the exploration, of the now famous cave of Brixham, by the Royal and Geological Societies, marked the dawn of a new era in cave-hunting. Under the careful supervision of Mr. Pengelly, flint implements were discovered 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. This singularly opportune discovery destroyed for ever the doubts that had overhung the question of the antiquity of man, and of his co-existence in Europe in company with the animals whose remains occur both in the caverns and river-deposits.

In 1847 M. Boucher de Perthes described certain rude flint implements that he obtained from the fluviatile gravels of Abbeville (“Antiquités Celtiques,” vol. i.), along with the bones of extinct animals; and his discovery was treated with the same scepticism in France as that of the Rev. J. McEnery in England, although it was verified by flint implements being discovered, under exactly the same conditions, in the gravels of Amiens, some forty miles away, by Dr. Rigollot.11 In the 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 disputed question. It is undoubtedly true, that scientific opinion was tending towards the acceptance of the evidence in favour of man having lived in Europe in the Pleistocene age; but the researches in Brixham cave established the fact on the highest possible authority, and confirmed the long-neglected discoveries in the valley of the Somme. By the end of 1859 it was fully accepted by the scientific world, and caused the exploration of caves to be carried on with increased vigour.

In December 1859,13 I began the exploration of the hyæna-den of Wookey Hole, near Wells, Somerset, in company with the Rev. J. Williamson, and obtained flint instruments along with the remains of the mammoth, hyæna, woolly rhinoceros, and other animals, under conditions that proved the contemporaneity of 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 implements were obtained along with the bones of the extinct mammalia.14 Kent’s Hole, begun18 in 1865 by the British Association, and still being worked, furnishes annually a vast number of bones and teeth of hyænas, rhinoceroses, cave-bears, and horses, and other animals, along with flint and bone implements.15

In 1869 I had the good fortune to discover, and subsequently to explore, a group of sepulchral caves in Denbighshire, which had been used by an Iberian or Basque race in the Neolithic age (Chapter 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 over a wide area in the centre and north of England, was occupied by the Brit-Welsh in the obscure interval which elapsed between the departure of the Roman legions and the English conquest.

France.—The researches of Buckland into the caves of Great Britain, and of Goldfuss and others into those of Germany, and more especially the publication of the “Ossemens Fossiles,” by Cuvier, gave an impetus to cave-exploration in France which yielded the same results as in our own country. The mammalia obtained from the cave of Fouvent (Haut Saone) in 1800 were described in the “Ossemens,” as well as those from Gondenans. In the Gironde, the Cave of Avison was explored 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 (Lozère) were described by De Serres in 1839, who subsequently added those of Carcas-sonne to the list in 1842. In this year MM. Prevost and J. Desnoyers explored the caves of Montmorency in the neighbourhood of Paris, and described the remains discovered in those of Bicêtre. The Cave of Pontil (Hérault) described by M. de Serres in 1847, was proved in 1864, by Professor Gervais, to contain two distinct strata, the neolithic lying over the palæolithic, as in Kent’s Hole.16

In 1860,17 the famous Cave of Aurignac was proved, by the investigations of Professor Lartet, to have been inhabited by man in the life-time of the extinct mammalia. Three years later the caves of Périgord were explored by that gentleman, along with Mr. Christy, and yielded results which mark a new era in the history of man in the remote past. From the remarkable collection of implements and weapons, the habits and mode of life of the occupants 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 believe further, that the interments that have been discovered in Aurignac20 and in Cro Magnon,18 in Périgord, are to be assigned to the same relative age as the occupation of the caves by man. From the fact, however, that the skeletons in both these cases were above the strata accumulated by the palæolithic cave-dwellers, it may be concluded that they were deposited after those strata were formed, in other words, that they are of a later age.

From 1863 down to the present time very many caves have been explored in France without any further addition to our knowledge, excepting the verification of the facts, afforded by the caves of Brixham and of Périgord, as to the co-existence of man with the extinct mammalia, and his probable identity in race with the Eskimos.

Belgium.—The caves of Belgium19 have afforded evidence of precisely the same nature as those of England and France. Dr. Schmerling, of Liège, published the results of his researches, begun in 1829, into the bone-caves on the banks of the Meuse and its tributaries, in 1833–4, and proved that the 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 Professor Spring discovered a quantity of burned, broken, and cut bones belonging to women and children, in the Cave of Chauvaux, which he considered to imply that it had been inhabited by a family of cannibals. Axes of polished21 stone were also met with, that indicated the relative age to be neolithic.

To pass over the human skeleton found in the Neanderthal Cave in 1857 by Dr. Fuhlroth, which is of doubtful antiquity, the next discoveries of importance are those made by M. Dupont in the years 1864–70, in the province of Namur, that established the fact that the same race of men who inhabited Auvergne 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 exact relation of the bones of the reindeer, chamois, mammoth, and other animals found outside the slab of stone, at the mouth of the sepulchral chamber, to the human remains within. In this case, as in Aurignac and Cro Magnon, the evidence seems to me insufficient to establish so important a conclusion.

Southern Europe.—In southern Europe the bone-caves of Sicily, worked in 1829 for the sake of the animal remains to be used in sugar refining, were scientifically examined by Dr. Falconer 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 elephant, and other characteristic African species, in Europe, and offer as we shall see in this work, important testimony as to the geography of the Mediterranean area in the Pleistocene age.

In this outline of the history of cave-exploration it22 will be seen, that the additions to our knowledge of the past have been neither few nor insignificant, nor in one line of inquiry. And if the attention which is now being directed to the subject be due to the general development 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, Persia, and the limestone plateaux of central Asia; and since these discoveries have been so valuable in central and north-western Europe, what may we not recover from the grasp of oblivion, of the infancy and early culture of mankind in the very birth-place and “pathway of the nations”?